Picture this: You’re outside watering your garden, and suddenly you notice your hose has lost water pressure. As you walk back to the faucet to investigate, you notice a tear in the vinyl on your hose. Great. You’ve sprung a leak.
At this point, you really have three options. You can keep using the hose and waste precious water, causing your water bill to go up and potentially allowing the leak to get worse. You can repair the leak with a patch kit that may or may not work for long, or you can get a new hose. The choice is up to you.
The same principle applies to cars, homes, and even dentistry. You can continue to mask or cover up problems with bandage solutions that will work for the time being, but in doing that, you always run the risk of making the problem worse or needing another patch job later down the road to replace the one you’ve been using.
Examples Of Bandage Solutions in Dentistry
Dentistry is one field where bandage solutions just won’t cut it. Say you have a condition such as temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMD), but you have been treating it yourself with over-the-counter painkillers. They sometimes work, but they sometimes don’t, and you also don’t want to be dependent on medication just to make it through the day.
That’s where Dr. Mingus comes in. With a custom solution that helps reposition your jaw naturally, you can eventually retrain the temporomandibular joint to fit into the socket, permanently alleviating your pain. No bandage solutions necessary.
Bandage Solutions For Cosmetic Dentistry
Do you have stained or discolored teeth? Have you tried white strips, whitening toothpaste or home remedies that claim to whiten teeth but don’t come through on their promise? These temporary solutions are often a waste of time and money, and they don’t even do what they say they will.
What you need is a permanent solution, such as professional whitening or veneers. These permanent solutions don’t just mask the problem or buy you time to fix it later, they correct the problem, yielding beautiful, natural-looking results – results you simply cannot get from over-the-counter whitening products.
Bandage Solutions For Full-Mouth Reconstruction
While some people have taken to getting clear aligners by mail to straighten their teeth, this is another bandage solution that won’t necessarily work. That’s because it’s done on your own, with very little oversight. Things can go wrong with your treatment and you won’t even know it if you’re not trained to see the problems. Moving a tooth even a millimeter in the wrong direction can cause your problem to worsen, your teeth to shift improperly, and it can even cause dental pain or lost teeth. Definitely not what you were going for when you sought out these services!
On the other hand, a permanent solution such as full-mouth reconstruction from Dr. Mingus is more than a bandage – it’s simply a solution to your problem. Dr. Mingus can prescribe anything from braces to crowns to veneers, helping to rebuild your smile from the ground up in a lasting, permanent way.
Bandage Solutions To Lost Teeth
If you are missing teeth, you may feel embarrassed by the gaps in your smile. Worse yet, missing teeth can cause bone degradation, which can eventually lead to more tooth loss and even loss of gum tissue and jaw bone.
A bandage solution to missing teeth would be a bridge or dentures, which will give you the appearance of teeth, but neither solution is exactly permanent. What you need is dental implants, which secure the jaw bone and provide a crown to replace the missing tooth. While there is no way to grow teeth back, a dental implant is the most permanent way to maintain the appearance of teeth where you have lost a natural tooth.
Bandage Solutions Vs. Permanent Solutions: The Bottom Line
Sometimes we need bandage solutions due to budgetary constraints or if we need to repair something quickly. But unfortunately, these temporary solutions will only get you so far. Eventually, they will need to be replaced, or you’ll be back to the same problem you had before – like that repaired garden hose, but worse.
For real, permanent solutions to your dental problems, Dr. Kelley Mingus offers a variety of cosmetic solutions that will leave you smiling. To schedule your consultation, please contact the office today!