Dental Bonding The process of binding, in which a dentist covers a tooth with either a plastic or enamel veneer, can treat many different problems affecting your teeth. Chips, cracks, stains, all can be corrected by bonding. The process begins by lightly etching your existing tooth enamel with an acid. This will allow the composite material which makes up the bonding. to adhere to your tooth. For major cracks or chips, a shell can be bonded onto the surface of a tooth. The shell will look just like a natural tooth. Frequently, bonding is not a permanent solution and will only last a few years. Crowns Crowns are often necessary to save teeth and are always placed on teeth after root canals. When a tooth has been severely traumatized by decay, breaks or too many fillings, your dentist might recommend covering the entire tooth with a replacement cap or crown. Crowns and caps are basically the same thing, with caps normally being used to over the front teeth. Before a crown is placed on the tooth, all the enamel is removed, as is much of the underlying substance that covers the tooth pulp, or the dentin. This procedure quite literally grinds the tooth into a shape molded for the crown. White porcelain crowns are filled on those teeth that are more visible. Gold or another metal is generally used on the molars. The entire procedure normally requires two or three visits to the dentist. Bleaching Tooth whitening (or home bleaching) kits have had a tremendous impact on the American consumer as well as the dental profession over the last year or so. Preliminary results of clinical research to test the effectiveness of these home kits are very favorable and have shown that the kits are very effective in lightening the teeth. However, as you might expect, home bleaching has also raised concerns in some quarters about the safety of the popular procedure. Now clinical tests conducted at leading universities have provided that the main ingredient in the bleaching kits, carbamide peroxide, has no adverse side effects and that it is not hazardous to human tooth enamel or to the gums. For best results, however, the instructions in the whitening kits recommend monitoring the bleaching process by a dental office or professional.