Smile makeover in Burwood

What it means

What a smile makeover actually is

The term covers any combination of treatments aimed at the appearance of your teeth. For one person it is whitening and two bonded edges. For another it is orthodontic treatment first, then whitening, then veneers on four teeth once everything has settled. There is no standard package, and anyone offering one has decided what you need before looking at your mouth.

What makes it a makeover rather than a list of separate appointments is the sequence. Some treatments have to happen before others to work: moving teeth before reshaping them, treating gum disease before anything cosmetic, whitening before matching any new material to the final shade. Getting that order wrong is the most common reason people end up paying twice.

The components

What a plan can include

Each of these has its own page, with its own risks and its own costs. A plan draws on whichever of them your assessment points to, and usually not all of them.

Planning

How the plan is put together

1. A full examination, not a cosmetic one

   Teeth, gums, bite and soft tissues, with radiographs where they are needed. Decay, gum disease, a cracked tooth or a grinding habit all have to be dealt with before cosmetic work, because cosmetic work sits on top of whatever is underneath it.

2. What is actually bothering you

   This matters more than it sounds. People often arrive asking for veneers when what they dislike is the colour, which whitening may address at a fraction of the cost and without touching the teeth.

3. Options, in writing, with the trade offs

   Usually there is more than one way to get a similar result, and they differ in how much tooth is removed, how long they last, how they are maintained and what they cost. You get those alternatives, not one recommendation.

4. The order, and what has to settle

   Where orthodontic treatment is involved, teeth need time to stabilise before anything is bonded or fitted. Where whitening is involved, the final shade has to be reached before matching. These gaps are deliberate and the plan states them.

5. A written plan with a fee against each stage

   Itemised, with what it covers and what it does not, so you can start with one stage and decide on the next later. Nothing proceeds until you have agreed to it.

Honesty about scope

When a smaller plan is the better plan

Not everyone who asks about a smile makeover needs one, and the most useful thing we can do at a consultation is sometimes to talk you out of most of it.

• If the concern is colour alone, whitening may be the whole answer, and it removes no tooth structure.
• If one or two edges are chipped, bonding those teeth is quicker, cheaper and more easily repaired than treating the whole front of the mouth.
• If teeth are crowded or overlapping, moving them keeps more natural tooth than covering them.
• If you grind or clench, that needs addressing first, or new work will wear and chip the same way the natural teeth did.
• If your teeth are healthy and you are weighing this up for someone else's benefit rather than your own, there is nothing wrong with deciding against it.

Treating healthy teeth carries a cost that is not only financial: enamel removed for a veneer does not come back, and a tooth that has been prepared will need something on it for the rest of your life. That is a reasonable trade in the right case and a poor one in the wrong case.

Risks and suitability

What you should know before you decide

A plan carries the risks of every treatment inside it, so the specifics depend on what yours includes. Across the common components:

• Veneers and crowns involve removing enamel, which is permanent. The tooth may become sensitive, the nerve can be affected and later need root canal treatment, and the restoration can chip, debond or need replacing.
• Bonding chips, stains and does not respond to whitening, so the shade match can drift over time.
• Whitening commonly causes temporary sensitivity and gum irritation, and it does not change the colour of existing dental work.
• Orthodontic treatment can cause discomfort, gum problems and shortening of the tooth roots, and teeth will move back without retainers worn as instructed.
• Implants and other surgical steps carry the risks of surgery, including infection, bleeding, nerve injury causing numbness or altered sensation, sinus involvement in the upper jaw, failure of the implant to integrate, and the possibility of further procedures.

Cost

What changes the cost

There is no standard fee for a smile makeover, and any figure quoted before an examination is a guess. The same two words can mean whitening and two bonded edges, or orthodontic treatment followed by eight veneers, and those are not comparable.

What moves it: which treatments the plan includes, how many teeth each one involves, whether anything has to be treated before the cosmetic work starts, the materials used, and whether a laboratory is involved. After your examination you get a written plan with a fee against each stage, so you can see what each part costs on its own and stage the work over time if you prefer.

Extras cover through a health fund often contributes to individual items, subject to your level of cover, waiting periods and annual limits, and reception can claim on the spot with HICAPS. Payment plan options, including what each provider covers and the limits that apply, are set out on their own page.

Your dentist

Who does this work at Burwood

Cosmetic treatment planning at the practice is led by Dr Pelin Montero and Dr Hadeel Ibrahim, who are both dentists holding general registration with the Dental Board of Australia through AHPRA. No dentist at this practice holds specialist registration, and cosmetic dentistry is not a recognised dental specialty in Australia, so the word specialist is not used here. Where a plan needs oral surgery beyond what is appropriate in general practice, we refer.

The practice has been on Burwood Road since the 1940s, is independently owned by Dr Samuel Gidaro, and is accredited under the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards through QIP. Any practitioner's registration can be checked on the AHPRA register at ahpra.gov.au.

Questions

Smile makeover questions