What’s up, Tailored Teeth fam? Dr. Rick here with another video for your fine selves.
Today’s video is titled You Are Not Ready For Dental Cosmetics. Before we start, a definition, discretionary spending, it’s when you spend money on things that you want but you don’t need, like cosmetics. It’s my personal belief that you should be healthy before you be Gucci. Because as fantastic as appearance is, when it comes to your health, there’s only so much that you can fake. And then it just doesn’t work for you.
Tailored Teeth is about guiding you through an honest journey where you learn about yourself and how to make the most of your dental and general health. So I’m going to be as straight as I possibly can with you because I respect you enough to be completely honest.
Number One – Your Gums
If your gums are bleeding, you’re not ready for cosmetic work.
You will have to come and see me, and we’ll do a professional clean and we will establish a healthy, clean environment for your mouth, first.
Number Two – Servicing
If you’re not brushing twice and flossing once every day, you are not ready for dental cosmetic work.
We need to find out why, why are you having difficulty with incorporating these normal things into your daily routines, and find the tools, techniques, adjustment to make it fit into your lifestyle.
Number Three – Dollars
If you can’t afford the maintenance of cosmetic work, that is twice yearly cleaning if we do it in porcelain or four times yearly cleaning if we do it in composite, then you can’t afford the cosmetic work.
If you, for example, choose to have a dog, you get a dog, the cost of the dog includes the de-worming and the chipping and the vet fees and the housing. And if you can’t afford those things, you can’t afford the dog. It’s exactly the same thing with dental cosmetics. What we will do instead is we’ll encourage you to go with a treatment option with a lower initial cost to get your teeth as healthy as they possibly can be and as white and as beautiful and, eventually, we can move on to that more expensive cosmetic work. And you will be no worse off because you’ve been getting healthier the whole way.
Number Four – Decay
If there is a large amount of uncontrolled decay in your teeth, you are not ready for dental cosmetic work.
Instead, we need to remove the decay and the disease from your mouth, treat and restore anything that’s been damaged, and then we can start discussing the cosmetic treatments.
Number Five – Clenching/Grinding
If you are clenching or grinding your teeth in an uncontrolled manner, whether you’re aware of it or not, whether you’re doing it in the day or while you’re asleep, you’re not ready for cosmetic work.
What is going to happen inevitably is you’re going to damage or chip or break the work that we do put in your mouth, and it’s just going to mean inconvenience, extra cost, extra headache for repairing it moving down the line, and you’re not going to get the value and experience that I want for you to have out of your cosmetic journey.
So that’s pretty much it. I want you to share this with your friend who’s sitting there talking about veneers but whose gums bleed when they bite into a banana. They’re not ready for cosmetic work.
Our take-home message today is start your dental cosmetic journey honestly and with the right team by your side. We’ve actually developed a very special journey for our patients to make sure that they know and they are truly ready for the cosmetic work before we do it. That journey starts with a consultation. Hopefully I’ll see you at Tailored Teeth.