If you've had a major or minor dental procedure done in the past few years, chances are that you could've gotten the same procedure done more quickly by a process called dental bonding. Dental bonding involves securing a resin to your tooth via a high-intensity light, and this resin acts almost like magic to make your teeth appear whiter and more well-aligned, and can even hide a chip in your tooth. Here are three procedures that all can be accomplished by a skilled dentist performing dental bonding. 

Teeth Whitening

Most teeth whitening procedures involve trying to change the color of your actual teeth, whereas dental bonding covers up discoloration in your teeth with a white resin that makes them gleam. The advantage here is twofold: first, the process takes little longer than a normal dentist visit, unlike traditional whitening, which can take months. Second, the whitening that goes on through bonding is absolute, meaning teeth don't have to gradually get lighter and lighter. You leave the dentist's office with dramatically whiter teeth instead of waiting weeks to reach a goal. 

Some Orthodontic Procedures

Certain orthodontic procedures can be replaced by dental bonding, and one common procedure like this is the closing of tooth gaps. Gaps are closed by very careful placement of the resin on the side of the tooth so that the gap appears smaller. This means that you won't need painful, awkward braces for months or years in order to close that tooth gap. Another upside to using this procedure for closing a tooth gap is that you probably won't need your teeth trimmed, which comes with its own list of issues and is common with braces and when using porcelain veneers, which are also used to close gaps. 

Chipped Tooth Repair

Instead of having an entire fake tooth made, fixing a chipped tooth via dental bonding allows you to keep your own tooth, but have it look as good as if there was no chip present whatsoever. This means that the entire process of having a fake tooth or teeth is completely avoided, since you won't need adhesives to keep your bonded tooth in place, just a few minutes under a UV light. 

Dental bonding can not only replace several very common dental procedures like chipped tooth repair or whitening, but can even do a better job faster due to the high-tech resin that is used to make your teeth look amazing. Contact a dentist like Richard M Holmes DMD PA to learn more.