1 November 2016
 Categories: Dentist, Articles

The holidays can bring a lot of happy times and smiles, but your smile can also be impacted due to a holiday mouth injury or change. There are multiple ways that your mouth can change or become injured due to special holiday events. Instead of putting a damper on the festivities, you can get treatment for these injuries with a cosmetic dentist. A cosmetic dentist is a specialty type of dentist that typically works on only cosmetic procedures to help with the visuals of your smile. By understanding the different injuries and types of procedure needed, you can prepare and plan as needed.

Holiday Foods and Chipped Teeth

The holidays always seems to bring on a lot of hard foods. Candy canes, peanut brittle, fruit cakes, and various meats are just a few of the hard and chewy foods that can cause cosmetic dental problems. One of the biggest issues that can occur from foods like this is a chipped tooth. Chipped teeth will more commonly occur to the front teeth of the mouth, but chipping can also create problems for back teeth like molars.

When a tooth is chipped, there are multiple options that you can choose from at a cosmetic dentist. For small chips, you may chose to go under a bonding procedure. This type of process uses a special flexible resin material that is applied to your teeth. Once the resin is shaped to match your original tooth, a special light is used to harden the material and set it in place. A dentist will polish and help smooth out the tooth once everything has dried. After the bonding process is complete, your mouth will feel normal again, and you will be able to use the tooth as usual.

Holiday Drinks and Dental Stains

The holidays are an ideal time to enjoy a lot of special drinks. Holiday coffees, special sodas, hot chocolate, tea, and eggnog are just a few of the drinks you may find yourself sharing with family and friends. While these types of drinks may taste great, prolonged drinking can actually cause stains on your teeth. Your likelihood of getting stains may also increase if you're also a regular soda or coffee drinker throughout the rest of the year.

Tooth stains can dramatically change the look of your teeth and may make you feel more self-conscious if there is a lot of discoloration. A cosmetic dentist has the ability to strengthen your teeth and eliminate the stains using a professional whitening process. A cosmetic dentist may offer different tooth-whitening treatments to help add some white glimmer to your holiday smile. One of the more common treatments is a bleaching process that uses whitening trays. Your teeth will be pressed down into special trays that quickly whitens the teeth in 30 minutes to an hour. Another whitening option is a laser whitening process that uses special lasers to whiten your teeth and restore the natural color.

Holiday Accidents and Damaged Teeth

The holidays can bring on a lot of traditions that can cause damaged or knocked-out teeth. Cutting down Christmas trees, setting up trees, ice skating, or climbing ladders to hang Christmas lights are just a few of these activities. If an accident occurs while you are performing these tasks, you may damage a tooth or knock it out completely. If this is the case, then a cosmetic dentist can place porcelain dental veneers into your mouth. The veneers are placed over your teeth and help recreate the smile you once had. Along with restoring the size and shape of your tooth, a veneer can add a natural white smile to your mouth.

A cosmetic dentist such as Michael G Landy DDS can provide you with more details and information on the various procedures that are available.