Smilefast is a new method of dental treatment which offers a smile makeover in a simple; fast (hence the name!) and cost effective manner. Brightside Dental’s dentists Dr Ketan Shah and Paarth Darbar have undertaken training to provide this exciting treatment option.

Ketan Shah was one of the first 100 dentists in the UK to become a Smilefast accredited dentist. He recently carried out treatment for a long-standing patient of the practice. Pooja was unhappy with her smile, despite undergoing various dental treatments in the past including orthodontic treatment; teeth whitening and composite bonding.

She was soon to be getting married and wanted a treatment option that could give her a smile to be confident for her wedding and treatment that could be completed in a short time and in a cost-effective manner. Smilefast gave her all of the above. We were able to improve the positions of Pooja’s upper front teeth which were slanted; along with the shape and colour.

The treatment involves initially planning so that patients can see how their new smile could look before committing to treatment. the second phase is a trial smile whereby a matrix is made and the planned new smile created in the mouth with a temporary filling material, which allows the patient to see how their new smile will look and if needed, any further changes can be made at this stage. The final stage is the Smilefast treatment itself, where composite (tooth coloured) filling material is used in a custom made matrix to create the new smile. This visit can take as little as 1 hour and the patient leaves with their brand new smile.

If you would like to know more about Smilefast or any of our cosmetic dental treatment options, give us a call on 020 88884401.

For most people, a visit to the dentist is not something they enjoy or particularly look forward to. Many people we see at Brightside Dental have some level of fear or a phobia of going to the dentist. These fears can vary as to the cause and how severely it affects them.

Brenda attended the practice for the first time recently, having put this off for over 30 years because of a previous bad experience and a fear of pain. She found Brightside online, having looked at the reviews of many of our happy patients and then took the plunge in booking an appointment.

If you are fearful about visiting the dentist, or know someone who is, please contact us and we will be happy to advise as to how we may be able to help. This may just need to start with an email or a phone call and we’ll take it from there.

To see some of our patients share their experiences with us, visit https://www.brightsidedental.co.uk/general-dentistry-bounds-green.html

9th February marks the annual National Toothache Day. This seems to be a strange day to have, as why would anyone want to celebrate a toothache? The purpose of the day is to raise awareness of dental issues and promote good oral health to avoid toothache.

There can be many different causes of toothache and for yourself it could be very difficult to be able to tell what has caused the issue.

Here are some of the more common causes:

• Food stuck between the gums which can cause gum or tooth pain
• Dental decay or a cavity
• Tooth abscess or infection
• Cracked tooth
• Infected gums
• Trauma – such as a knock to a tooth or an accident/fall
• Infected gums
• Other illness such as a cold which gives tooth like pain
• Sinusitis

If you are experiencing gum pain, it is advised to throughly brush your teeth along with interdental cleaning with floss or an interdental brush to remove any food that may be stuck. Rinsing your mouth with warm salt water can help ease the pain.

Sometimes painkillers will be needed to help reduce pain. In the event of toothache, it is advisable to seek advice from your dentist and more urgently if you are having severe pain that is constant and painkillers may not be controlling or if you notice a swelling of your face or the inside of your mouth that may be a sign of an infection.

At Brightside Dental, we offer a tooth crisis clinic for pain or problems, whereby we would assess the problem you have, carry out further tests such as an x ray and provide a solution on the day if it’s simple, otherwise advise on further treatment required.

If you need any help or advice, call us on 020 88884401.

Sarah has been a regular patient at Brightside Dental for many years and had wanted to improve her smile for many years. She deliberated over having orthodontic treatment for more than 2 years before making the decision to go ahead with treatment.

Sarah had cosmetic fixed braces carried out by Dr Ketan Shah and treatment was completed in around 9 months. Some common points were relevant to Sarah and raised by her and these apply to many of our patients who are considering cosmetic dental treatment:

• Always having been conscious of her smile. Would cover her mouth and not like having photos taken
• Had been wanting to have treatment and researched options available
• Cost was a factor and was helped by having a payment plan to spread the total fee
• Was scared about treatment being painful but it was “plain sailing”
• Fitting appointments around her schedule – flexible appointment times helped and swift management of any emergencies or problems
• Unsure how the outcome will be – for Sarah she feels her smile is now perfect
• Because of various uncertainties often treatment is delayed and the most common thing we hear once treatment is completed is that “I wish I had gone ahead sooner”

If you would like to know more about options of how we could help improve your smile email us or give us a call on 020 88884401.

Invisalign clear aligners are one of the most simple and discreet ways to straighten teeth and improve your smile. Orthodontic treatment is not just for children and often treatment can be completed in months, not years.

At Brightside Dental, we have an exclusive offer for the New Year. Join us one of our Invisalign Smile Days on either 28th January or 4th February for a FREE assessment, with no obligation to go ahead with treatment unless you are fully happy with what is proposed.

On the day you will have:

• A consultation to assess your suitability for treatment
• A full series of dental photos of your mouth and smile
• A digital record of your smile and teeth
• X ray if required
• A smile simulation to see how your smile could look after Invisalign treatment

The above is worth £165 and is completely free of charge.

If you are suitable for Invisalign treatment and choose to go ahead, you will receive FREE teeth whitening and 3 sets of Invisalign Vivera retainers at the end of treatment – a saving of £750!!!

Contact us now on 020 88884401 or reply back to this email to secure your booking.

A recent survey was carried out to look at the ingredients of Christmas special drinks in the UK’s top coffee chains. The one that contained the most sugar was Pret A Manger’s mint hot chocolate, with a standard sized cup containing over 50g sugar – this is the equivalent to almost 2 Mars bars or 1.5 cans of Coke or 20 McVitie’s digestive biscuits.

To put this into context, the NHS advises that adults should have no more than 30g of free sugars per day and children less than this. One hot chocolate could be almost double the recommended daily amount of sugar.

This is not just an issue over Christmas as many drinks in coffee shops contain high amounts of sugar. As a treat once in a while, it may not be an issue, but having a regular sweet drink is likely to lead to tooth decay and possibly other health issues.

With it being the New Year and the time many people make resolutions and changes to their lifestyle, maybe this is a good time to consider the drinks you are buying from coffee shops for yourself or your children. Better still, if you are having hot chocolate or similar drinks, why not make them at home so you can have better control over the ingredients and save money too.

• Here are the other drinks that made the top 5 of the survey:
• 2. Costa Coffee hazelnut praline hot chocolate (38.6g)
• 3. Starbuck’s toasted marshmallow hot chocolate (36.7g)
• 4. Starbuck’s eggnog latte (33.8g)
• 5. Costa Coffee hazelnut praline latte (32.6g)

If you watch or read the news and navigate your way past all the negativity and doom and gloom reported in the press, there are regular stories of people doing their bit (and often very much over and beyond) to help the environment.

As the new year, and new decade have just begun, it seems an appropriate opportunity to discuss what we have been doing at Brightside Dental recently to help the environment.

One of the biggest challenges we have within the dental profession is that as part of the multitude of regulations we work under, we have to use single-use equipment and materials where possible and unfortunately most are currently plastic only options. Here is a news story of a professor who is helping dentists reduce the single-use of plastics https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-south-yorkshire-49528007/sheffield-professor-urges-dentists-to-ditch-single-use-plastic?fbclid=IwAR19_Suc4MvRHICny4Xg4K-Z1mUMtZgr7cA_Zofm3A4s5cyIrgMT_e8y5uA

The two main recent initiatives are that we offer recycling of toothpaste tubes and toothbrushes and another is that we have switched from using plastic to paper cups. These have both been as a result of suggestions from patients of ours. This is in addition to other measures we already have in place in the practice. If you have an ideas on changes we could make, or ways to implement kinder ways of working to our environment, please do let us know.

Jane joined Brightside on the recommendation of a friend of hers who had recently started orthodontic treatment with us. She was unhappy with her smile, especially the upper front teeth, some of which were sticking out and some sitting inwards compared with the other teeth.

It had been something that had bothered her for some time, but part of the concern about having treatment, was how it would affect her work being a teacher and having to talk most of the day. She went ahead with fixed cosmetic braces for the straightening of her teeth, having been able to have many questioned answered about how the braces would feel and getting a first hand insight from her friend.

Treatment progressed very well and all as planned in terms of comfort and convenience. We were able to arrange appointments after school and during holidays, without any impact on work and the treatment was fully completed in just over 1 year. Jane was very pleased with the result and definitely now feels more confident in smiling and speaking in public.

If you would like to find more about how we could help improve your smile, or to speak with one of our many patients who has had teeth straightening with us, please give us a call on 020 88884401.

As we approach the festive season, many of us have Christmas parties and other get togethers; children are soon to break up from school and we may have a number of social events during the end of year break.

Whilst enjoying the festivities and often over indulging in food and drink, dental health can suffer. You may neglect your usual oral hygiene habits during this period due to late nights and changes in your routine and also have a lot more sweet food and drinks than normal. Please try and ensure you take the time to clean your teeth well and where possible limit the frequency of sweet and acidic food and drinks to reduce the risk of causing problems in the mouth.

Brightside Dental’s practice principal, Ketan discusses this further here, along with a festive message.

At Brightside, we often see patients with dental problems during December and January. Two of the most common reasons are due to eating hard sweets and toffees and also opening bottle with teeth – please, please don’t do these things! As much as we like seeing you at the practice, we would rather these issues are avoided.

Wishing you an enjoyable festive season and best wishes for the New Year from all the team at Brightside. We look forward to seeing you and helping you with your dental needs in 2020.

The annual Oral Health Awards ceremony took place last week and we are very proud that Brightside Dental were finalists in the category of “Best Dental Care of Nervous Patients”.

At Brightside, we pride ourselves on providing painless dentistry in a calm and gentle environment. We work hard and invest in regular training to improve both our communication and clinical skills; along with using the most up to date technology to help our patients in the best way we can.

Unfortunately, we see from many of our patients that they have had bad dental experiences in the past which makes them fearful and often puts them off visiting the dentist. The awards were really refreshing to see so many like-minded colleagues who focus on providing the best patient care they can; as sometimes it seems like we are in a minority.

Many of Brightside’s happy patients leave online reviews sharing their experiences, some of which can be seen here : https://www.brightsidedental.co.uk

If you are scared of visiting the dentist, or know someone who is, please do get in touch as we would love to be able to help.