If you look at the tooth to the left of the one with the grotty ‘white’ filling you may be surprised to know that 15 mins previous to this photo it looked exactly like the grotty one. We are replacing this chap’s ugly white fillings with nice shiny new ones that look their age (ie well into the 21st century)…

People often ask if we enjoy dentistry. But who wouldn’t like being able to take out that grotty old filling and replace it with a nice shiny new one. We can get this invisible effect using our beautiful italian white filling materials, and a little bit of technique to go with it!!

Ok here’s the rub:

Grotty white filling in the middle of the picture
Estimated cost £20
Estimated time involved 5 mins
No guarantees
Replace every 2 years?

Shiny new Italian composite filling on the left
Time involved 15 mins
Cost £70
Cost of filling material: at least double that of the cheap stuff
5 year guarantee.

Quality dentistry costs less over time and makes you feel good.

Winning Smiles spot the crown competition take 2:
Clue: there is one crown in this picture, can you tell which one?

Spot the crown

Some of the simplest jobs are the most satisfying.

This chap said he had been hiding his smile for years. His main issue was the general yellowness of his teeth and an old filling in the upper central incisor.

We carried out some (minor) bleaching and replaced that old filling with a new one using Enamel Plus HFO material with Dr Lorenzo Vanini’s technique – see our best white fillings blog article.

Not sure if these pictures do it justice (it may depend on your computer settings). The real-life difference was more remarkable, but I’m sure you can see the difference anyway.

So I thought it was about time I posted a few case studies. Here they are:

Tooth replacement and smile makeover: Case Study

A full set of replacement teeth: Case Study

Implant bridge: Case Study

Implant retained dentures: Case Study

I’d love to hear what you think – or if you have any questions about dental implants at all, please do post something in the comment box below.

Here at Winning Smiles we’ve been closing gaps between teeth for years, using our Italian composite-filling system (the same white filling system we use for tooth decay) – see our best white fillings blog article.

The beauty of using ‘Cosmetic bonding’ with a top class tooth-coloured filling system (like Enamel Plus) is that:

• the teeth don’t need to be cut or ground down;
• it’s over and done with in one visit (no waiting for crowns or veneers to come back from the lab);
• it’s painless, really, I don’t even use anaesthetic for this technique!

So what are the drawbacks?

Nothing too serious really, I recommend having them polished once or twice a year to maintain their ‘lustre’ and I usually do the polishing during routine 6 month examination appointments (at no extra charge).

They can get chipped/broken, but so can veneers, the difference is that these bonded build-ups can be repaired seamlessly (chipped veneers have to be replaced completely).

And all for around £400. Something worth talking about?  In fact, it’s such a popular treatment I don’t know why I haven’t mentioned it before!

Here’s an example of the before and after pictures:

There are times when the teeth are discoloured from within rather than from run of the mill red wine and coffee stains on the outside. It usually involves one or two front teeth (upper or lower) that have been root-filled in the past and have become severely discoloured (brown, yellow or orange).

When these badly discoloured teeth are combined with a generalised yellow appearance of the other teeth (from years of staining) this makes for the hand-over-mouth, or lip over teeth, smile that so many patients seem to put up with.

Standard dental bleaching involves either using trays at home or a special light source used in the dental chair (see my teeth whitening blog for views on which works best). However it is also possible to bleach the inside of these very dark (root-filled) teeth, and at Winning Smiles we use a technique that combines both bleaching the outside of all the teeth and bleaching the inside of those extra-orange ones. The results are quite spectacular and often avoids the need for drilling and crowning these individual problem-teeth.

In the photo, two of these front teeth were ‘off-the-scale’ orange, the rest were just a creamy shade of yellow from normal staining. The patient had 10 days to go before his dream wedding in the caribbean. This is how he looked after a week of Inside-Out-Bleaching. Can you tell which ones used to be orange?

If you look really closely, two of the teeth are whiter than the others – yep, you guessed it, those are the ones that were orange a week ago!

Readers are invited to guess which one is the filling, and which one is the crown.

I would take the opportunity to mention that our white fillings are always guaranteed to stay in.

We didn’t exactly push this facility, it felt a bit like fishing for compliments – but someone just pointed out that people might actually want to have the opportunity. So, for any of our existing patients please find the facility in the reviews section in the above drop down menu, and click the link. You can enter feedback directly into the form.

Our latest colleague at Winning Smiles, Damien Reilly, had some positive feedback recently, and because it is directly about his dental sedation – which addresses a lot of people’s desire for ‘painless dentistry’ – we thought we’d produce an excerpt here.

I came in for 4 hours sedation with your FANTASTIC sedationist Doctor Damian. It was recommended as I needed 10 upper crowns and surgery to even up my gum lines. This involved a very lengthy treatment, which thankfully I was not aware of. Amazingly I was told to eat and drink before treatment. The drug process to put me to sleep was not in the least bit traumatic. It only involved a tiny needle, with just one drop at a time of the drug. When I came round, I did not feel unwell in the least (just not quite with it). It was a totally stress free experience, and I recommend it to anyone undergoing lengthy/complex work.

Ruth is extremely generous in terms of her comments, but also the time taken to feed back on this site.

We’re just a bit worried now that it looks like we’re paying her instead of the other way round!

Whichever the case, when we thought of generating more publicity, because everyone deserves to know more about Winning Smiles, the thought of a prize draw popped into someone’s head.

So – here it is, the free teeth whitening draw. Enter online via the link.

Only. We’re not sure that people still go in for these things. Have the public grown cynical of offers? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

The main point is that it’s free to enter, no strings, no massive postal bumpf will arrive, and no spammy email every other day. So what’s to lose?

If you can think of anything, feel free to leave a comment, else perhaps just go ahead and enter. Vote with your feet….for your teeth.

Veneers are a really great way to tackle dental cosmetic problems when teeth are;

• badly discoloured
• broken/chipped
• have gaps between them

In fact, Veneers are the most asked about cosmetic dental treatment after whitening (which is usually better for discoloured teeth). But there can be a problem…..

Most dentists know how to make perfectly functional temporary crowns. But temporary veneers on the other hand are considered a bit of a black art (if they are considered at all).

Veneers require the removal of a thin layer of enamel from the tooth. And what happens when (even) a thin layer of enamel is removed from a front tooth? The yellow dentine starts to shine through. After committing to veneer treatment, the last thing you want is to come out looking worse -even for a few day! (let alone a few weeks.)… We don’t ask our patients to stand for that.

Pascal currently works and teaches at the University of Southern California and is world renowned for his veneer knowledge and research, and has written THE book, my ‘Veneer-Bible’. Pascal outlines a beautiful technique to produce temporary veneers for patients, whilst waiting for their permanent porcelain [Pascal also teaches how to produce and prep for perfect permanent veneers of course!!].

This is a before photo (old veneers to be replaced), and one showing temporaries veneers in place:

• They look better than the patient’s own teeth.
• They stay put.
• They come off fairly easily when the time comes to glue the permanent ones on.

And the drawbacks?

Well preparation time is longer – but instead of waiting for a couple of weeks, the patient gets instant improvements. We think it’s worth it.

Here are the permanent Veneers in place a week or so later: