Metal Mouth Message Board

I would ask over on the "life after braces" forum, but it can tend to be a ghost town over there. So anyway, it looks like a may have to get two of my upper teeth 'built up' (as my ortho calls it) for maximum aesthetics and lowest risk of relapse. I don't know the names of them, but they are the two teeth right next to the top middle teeth. They simply formed to small he tells me (which is common I am told). So in order to completely close any gaps up there, I may need to get them bonded. This will also help with any relapse in the sense that, if my teeth wanted to shift in that direction again, they will not have the room to. So in that case, I am cool with it.

So any one here ever dealt with this? He tells me that these days, it only needs to be touched up every 10 or 15 yrs or so....

Well i haven't had teeth built up, but i do have bonding on one of my upper centrals. My daughter jumped into my lap as i took a drink of coffee and smacked the cup into my tooth. So a small area of the bottom of the tooth is bonding and you can't tell at all. If your dentist is very good they can match the color perfectly. If you had planned on whitening your teeth you should do it before the bonding. There is someone on the boards that had bonding on her two front teeth and she showed pictures with it, and pictures with it taken off. You couldn't see it at all in the before pics.
Good luck

ashesgap wrote:Well i haven't had teeth built up, but i do have bonding on one of my upper centrals. My daughter jumped into my lap as i took a drink of coffee and smacked the cup into my tooth. So a small area of the bottom of the tooth is bonding and you can't tell at all. If your dentist is very good they can match the color perfectly. If you had planned on whitening your teeth you should do it before the bonding. There is someone on the boards that had bonding on her two front teeth and she showed pictures with it, and pictures with it taken off. You couldn't see it at all in the before pics.
Good luck

Thanks for the quick response. Especially about the whitening aspect. That is absolutely something that I have wanted to do. Get it done before you say, huh?? That makes sense. So what happens when you want to get them whitened again in the future? Can the bonded portions also be whitened? What about those home whitening kits??

The bonding doesn't change color. So once its matched to your whitened teeth you would hope that re-whitening later on would re-match them.

ashesgap wrote:The bonding doesn't change color. So once its matched to your whitened teeth you would hope that re-whitening later on would re-match them.

Cool thanks for the info.....

My upper lateral incisors are a bit narrow also and my ortho has recommended bonding for the best results. As the previous post said, you definitely want to have any whitening done before the bonding as the bonding material does not whiten. However, one of the docs on this forum advised to wait (at least a month??) after whitening before having any bonding since teeth tend to change color a bit after whitening and you don't want the bonding material to be "whiter" then your teeth. In other words, you don't want the bonding material matched to a tooth color that is unsustainable. Reviews seem to be mixed as to the effectiveness of the home whitening kits. I plan to use the system my dentist uses (trays) for about $200.

I have friends who have had bonding done with excellent results.

Good stuff man, thanks^^^^^^^^^

I too was thinking of having some bonding after the braces are removed. Does anyone know if you would need to get new retainers after the bonding? I'm guessing they wouldn't fit once your tooth shape has been made slightly different?

Yes, my boyfriend has done a couple of rounds of bonding after his braces came off, and has had to get new essix retainers made afterwards.

I chipped a front tooth last summer horribly. %50 of the front of my central incisor was gone, the back remained. It was extremely traumatic emotionally, I was crying for days thinking it would be impossible to fix. I went to a cosmetic dentist and I had excellent bonding done.

On the downside, my sister has also had bonding on the same tooth that came out VERY wonky. She had the most ugly bonding job for years before the dentist fixed it. I think it was either because she was young, or maybe the materials/concept of cosmetic bonding were new to the dentist at the time.

The downside that we both hate is lack of bleaching teeth. I couldn't whiten before the bonding as the chipped tooth HURT so badly with everything. I tried to whiten after and my teeth are slightly whiter than the bond - not enough for anyone to notice but when I get right up in the mirror I can see it.