Dental bonding describes the fusing of a material to your teeth. There are two types of dental bonding - direct and indirect. Direct bonding is used for fillings and minor color changes. Indirect bonding is used with crowns, caps and veneers.
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Direct Bonding: This is an exciting development in modern dentistry. For the first time, we have the ability to attach something to a tooth without having to cut away tooth structure first. Even though we usually do prepare the teeth, the preparations are much smaller and much stronger than the preparations for the mercury-silver fillings.
The material we use for this direct bonding is a hard resin/composite with very specific color considerations. The resin is usually totally invisible to the naked eye, and fillings are often so lifelike that the teeth appear to be untouched. We use direct bonding for fillings, minor tooth enhancement and to replace unsightly stains in smile zones.
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Indirect Bonding: This is a cosmetically superb way to restore a tooth! We use the direct bonding material (the very hard resin) to laminate (or glue) a durable material like porcelain to a prepared tooth.
One of the advantages of this technique is the ability to spend a lot of time in the lab to perfect the color, fit and position of the restoration before it is placed. The finished restoration looks exactly like a natural tooth.