Los Angeles Cosmetic Dentist: A Growing Science

What does a Los Angeles cosmetic dentist do?

As a Los Angeles cosmetic dentist, we view our role as taking the great work done by other dentists, who help keep your teeth healthy, and making it beautiful, so you have more than just healthy teeth. In essence, there are many fundamental differences between what a cosmetic dentist does and what a general dentist does, with some crossover. If you were looking for the fast pitch, a cosmetic dentist is a dentist who takes your teeth and works on correcting your bite, the color and luminescence of your teeth, shape and length, and of course, the straightness. We accomplish these using a series of methods and treatments. A general dentist focuses on things you have to do, like corrective procedures, cleanings, oral health-related activities, and proactive protection of the teeth from gum diseases, effectively curing or preventing diseases of some form. On the other hand, your cosmetic dentist is focused on the things you choose, want, and elect to make yourself look better. In a sense, it is the form you choose versus the function you want.

However, nothing is ever so simple, and with the improvements in dental science, we have increasingly seen a crossover between the two disciplines, blowing away the notion that cosmetic dentistry is for show only. Take, for example, the humble process of filling a tooth: been around for thousands of years, done pretty much the same way, and performed by millions of dentists around the globe. However, before the advent of cosmetic dentistry, fillings were made of gold or amalgam. This made it so when you yawned, everyone in the room could count the number of fillings you had. Enter dentists like your cosmetic dentist with a solution that included using porcelain and composite fillings. These are the same color and shade as your natural teeth, so when they are placed, nobody is any the wiser that you do not have all your natural teeth fully intact.

As with most things in the modern era, the work we do as a cosmetic dentist has gained notoriety and popularity across all segments of the dental world. Today, there is hardly a person alive in America who does not know about a dozen different ways to go about getting their teeth whitening done. Other procedures and techniques we use have been absorbed into the mainstream of dentistry, seamlessly becoming part of treatments that patients use every day. Things like dental crowns, which are used to cap and cover damaged teeth or to replace teeth along with a dental implant, have made the leap from cosmetic to essentially functional. Even products that were once considered to be exclusively for appearance, like dental veneers, have now made such an impact, people are using them for damaged teeth and to correct functional problems. Cosmetic dentistry has truly come into its own.