For others, the real problems with our teeth developed later on. Without parental guidance to take us to the dentist, we revelled in our freedom perhaps a little bit too much and we drank black coffee, red wine and fizzy drinks of just about every colour we could lay our hands on. In addition, some of us may have smoked a few cigarettes and wolfed down a few sugary snacks. If we take this and add it to the youthful damage described above, we can see a pattern emerging.

The problem, after all, with doing exactly what we wanted, when we wanted it, is that there is payback some way along the line, and in the case of your teeth it can appear very prominently. If you have serious staining and decay, there may not be enough for a cosmetic dentist to work with in terms of whitening the tooth. It may be the case that they have to crown it instead.

Having a crown placed on your tooth is something of a “fresh start”, whatever has happened to get your teeth in that condition in the first place. Once you have this done, it is important to leave behind the choices that led to the decay or the damage that was done to your teeth. However, you are unlikely to be ignorant of this information – often, the dentist needs to grind away much of the original tooth in order to fit the crown, so it is impossible to be unaware of the seriousness of the treatment. Nonetheless, as a repair for teeth that are not fit for purpose, the choice to have crowns fitted may be a good one.

There is a particular amount of certainty needed before you go about whitening your teeth. Whether you do this by home kit or with the dentist, there will be a certain amount of caution necessary. Some home kits are sold and advertised as “high strength – whitest smile ever”, or some such combination of buzz words. Bear in mind that if the kit is as high-strength as the maker claims it to be, then it will contain a high concentration of peroxide – leaving that too long on your teeth could lead to painful and unsightly results.

It is not legal to practice as a dentist without having the necessary accreditation, even if you are in a private practice. However, this does not necessarily guarantee that every dentist who is accredited will do as good a job as any other. It is vitally important, therefore, to do your research when deciding which dentist to go to. There are numerous sites on the Internet where people exchange opinions of their experience with various service providers – it may be worth seeing what they are saying about your prospective dentist.

Before having cosmetic dentistry carried out, it is worth speaking to your general dentist to find out if there is any treatment that you should simply avoid for health reasons. Some treatments will not be suitable for some patients. While your dentist may take a dim view of cosmetic dentistry, they will leave you to make up your own mind on the treatment, but they will inform you if a certain treatment is unsafe, and why.

There are numerous countries where cosmetic dental treatment is available to the British citizen – at a low cost and often of very high quality. Where you go for dental treatment is up to you. Where would you like to go? Is there somewhere you have always fancied visiting? Check out a Google search for cosmetic dentistry in that country and you may just find that you can combine a highly enjoyable holiday with the treatment you desire. There is a long and growing list of countries which provide cosmetic dental treatment.

The region of Eastern Europe is one which has become a popular tourist destination in the last few decades, with this popularity increasing considerably in recent years – due in no small part to the expansion of the European Union. Countries such as Latvia and Lithuania – very few people’s idea of an ideal place to visit as recently as the turn of the century – have excellent private sector dentistry and plenty to explore. In addition, Bulgaria and Romania, along with much of the former Yugoslavia, are also popular. So are Hungary, Slovakia and Poland.

If you want a country that has more of a history of tourism, then popular holiday stalwarts such as Italy and Switzerland have some very good treatment centres. Or maybe you would like to cast your net further afield. There are some excellent places to go in Asia to receive dental treatment, not least India and the Philippines. It is about what makes the best fit for you. Getting the best treatment for the best price in a country where you would like to spend a week or more – it may require some research, but it is well worth doing.

The one thing that all tooth-whitening procedures have in common is that they use peroxide as a way of bleaching the teeth, or more specifically on the enamel surface. The major difference that laser treatment has against other methods is that the laser treatment carries a larger dose of peroxide, and a more effective treatment which generally does the job in one sitting. Due to this it allows a dentist to focus specifically on the areas that really need treated – whether that be your front teeth or somewhere on the lower row.

One thing that puts a lot of people off the idea of having their teeth whitened with laser treatment is the idea of a laser being dangerous. However, the type of laser used in tooth whitening is actually an argon laser which carries none of the potential dangers that other laser treatments for other parts of the body have had in the past. There is no sensation of heat when an argon laser is trained on your teeth, nor does it result in bleaching of the gums or chemical burns.

As with any other form of cosmetic dentistry, you should first consult your own dentist to ensure that you are going to be safely able to undergo the surgery. There are some cases, and they are rare, in which it is not advisable to undergo laser tooth whitening. Your dentist will be able to inform you on what these are – and whether they need concern you.

One problem that affects a number of people without perhaps getting as much attention as the aforementioned ones is when they have what is typically described as a “gummy smile”. You know what a gummy smile looks like – it is when a person’s gums cover more of their front teeth than they ordinarily would. It can make teeth look shorter than they should be, and even if it doesn’t it can still be embarrassing to deal with. Many people feel they cannot smile without covering up their teeth because they are concerned that their smile looks bad.

It is possible to get treatment for a “gummy smile”. Before doing this one has to decide whether their gummy smile is affecting their life negatively. For many, it will be. If they feel that they cannot smile because of the way their smile looks, then it will adversely affect their self-confidence and after a while that will begin to wear them down. The solution to the problem is a process known as “gum contouring”.

The process for gum contouring can be one of two possible approaches. The first one is done using a scalpel, and will be a low-cost option. It may sound painful, but it usually is not that severe at all. The process can also be carried out by laser for a slightly higher cost, but a quicker process and, in many people’s opinion, a more polished end result. Gum contouring is available from most cosmetic dentists, so if you are concerned about your gummy smile, you may find there is a benefit in contacting your dentist.

The question is, how do you fill that gap? Ideally, you don’t want to leave it as it is, and this is not just for cosmetic reasons. Eating is a much more troublesome process if you have one or more teeth missing, so it is important to have the gap filled. You could have a denture made, but more and more people are feeling that a better approach is to have a dental implant put in place instead. Compared to a denture, an implant will provide a more viable long-term solution, as it aids the integrity of the jaw bone and is more likely to contribute positively to the health of surrounding teeth.

Dental implants are made from titanium – one of the strongest metals commercially available, and happily one that is friendly to bone and which integrates well. The bad news is that putting one in place does involve drilling a hole in your jaw bone – which sounds horribly painful. The good news is that due to anaesthetic you won’t feel very much, and that this process aids the integration of the implant into the bone tissue, creating as a result a very stable foundation.

In addition to those technical factors, it is notable that a dental implant works a lot more like a natural tooth than a denture. Therefore eating an apple or similar “hard” food will not be problematic, and your dental routine need not be disturbed by the presence of the implant, as all you need to do is the same thing you would do with normal teeth.

As well as this, the rise in popularity of cosmetic dental treatments has led to an increase in patient waiting lists, even though the treatment is only available privately. A cosmetic dentist offering good value will naturally have more people waiting to get the treatment they want, while a dentist with poor reviews or sky-high costs will have a pretty big black mark against their name in terms of attracting customers who are not either 100% certain, desperate or very cash-rich. For this reason, a number of people – and a growing number at that – have been exploring the prospect of going abroad to have treatment.

For one thing, a lot of the medical treatments available on the continent are a lot more affordable than the same treatment back home. Although one might expect a resultant drop in quality, this is not always, or even usually, the case. Sometimes the treatment, and the facilities, are competitive with and even better than those available on British soil. It depends where you go, of course. The same is true everywhere – there are some dentists who are better than others, whichever country you go to.

Indeed, there are even some companies offering “dental tourism” trips which encompass a spell of sight-seeing and exploration along with the dental treatment that you receive. This may seem like a strange idea, but when you take into account that some of the more unspoiled areas of Europe are included in the list of places that you can go to for dental treatment, then it makes a lot of sense. People go on golfing holidays and fishing trips, so why not have a dental holiday?

In a way, composite bonding is very much like having a little something extra added to your teeth. In fact, this is almost exactly what it is. The “composite” is essentially a paste-like substance which is added to your teeth in order to create the appearance of “more”. Indeed, it is more than just an appearance, because the technique is used to fill cavities as well as repairing chipped teeth. For repairing or closing a gap in your teeth, composite bonding works well because it simply adds to the teeth rather than requiring a great deal of surgery.

Is there a drawback to composite bonding? Well, there is, in as much as there is a drawback to any kind of corrective or cosmetic treatment. That which is put in place by a doctor or dentist will not be an absolute match for that which your body grows completely naturally. You may find that the parts of your teeth that are made from composite paste seem to stain more easily than those that are made from enamel. This is an issue you have to look at from your own point of view – do you mind that your teeth may require more maintenance once the work is done?

Additionally, the bonding is not quite as strong as the enamel of your teeth, nor as other synthetic materials which are used for similar treatment. This should not, however, matter too much over time, as long as you assiduously carry out your specified dental routine to keep your teeth clean and free of potential decay.

The progress of technology has been somewhat steady in recent years towards a point where things no longer need to be “done well or done quickly”. It is now possible for many things to be done well and quickly, and this is shown very comprehensively by CEREC dentistry, which allows a patient to go in for work on their teeth, have their needs assessed, and the necessary work done that very day – even within an hour or two. While people may have previously ruled out having a false tooth made on the grounds of the hours they would have to commit to it, CEREC treatment removes that necessity.

Whatever you need to have done to your teeth, CEREC treatment involves looking at your mouth through the wonders of digital imaging. While dentists once had to take a putty cast of the tooth in question, they can now take a digital photograph of the tooth in your mouth and convert it into a three-dimensional model, on which the new false tooth – or restorative crown – is based. Once all of the necessary data has been collected, it is then sent to a machine which makes the new tooth or crown in as little as six minutes – and half an hour at most.

Having done this work, the dentist can then do the final parts of the job, which may involve polishing the tooth, before cementing it into place and restoring your smile to what you wish it to be. Because this only takes one visit, it can often work out at a more reasonable price than a more low-tech solution – even though it is ground breaking technology.

So can you take the situation into your own hands and decide to whiten your teeth yourself? The answer to this question depends very largely on a number of matters, not least of which is how sure you are that you can get it right. It is not just a matter of following instructions, after all. People wouldn’t pay for the treatment if it was simple enough to do it yourself. OK, some might, but cosmetic dentistry has become a fairly wealthy industry because its practitioners can do things that most of us cannot.

There are home tooth-whitening kits. Some of the most popular brands to use are freely available over the counter in most good pharmacies. They always have a picture of someone smiling very brightly on the front and that person’s teeth are always perfectly white. The impression is that if you use that stuff, you’ll have a smile like them. However, it is generally held that the majority of home whitening kits do a little to whiten your teeth but never get them to a really impressive level – and by the time you’ve lost patience with them, you’ve spent a lot.

One has only to surf the Internet for a short period to pick up tips on how to make a tooth-whitening solution yourself. However, caution must be urged in this. The general advice is to combine baking soda with hydrogen peroxide until you have a solution that you can coat your teeth with, and then let the magic take place. will this work? Well, you might be lucky and have some success, or you might get the solution wrong and make yourself very ill. It is a better idea to research cosmetic dentists in your area and find one who has got good reviews and reasonable prices. It may cost more up front, but it will work and it will be quick.