Bored with body art?

  • Tattooed TEETH allow people to display their loved one on their crowns
  • Tooth tattoos are an emerging trend as people seek to decorate their mouths with images of their favorite things
  • Tattoos can’t yet be applied to healthy teeth, but for patients requiring a crown a tooth tattoo becomes a viable option
  • A dental stain tattoo is no more painful than having a more typical crown fitted. 
  • The process involves a dentist taking an impression of the tooth where the crown is to be fitted.
  • The tooth mold is then sent to somewhere like the dental lab where the design is added and the crown is fired in an oven at 212 degrees.
  • Called “tatteeth,” the procedure can unfortunately only be done for people who need dental crowns.

In order to tattoo a tooth, a dentist takes an impression of the tooth that needs to be fitted with a crown, which is then sent to a lab that can add the design.

The first tattoo on a tooth was nearly 20 years ago, at the Suburbia Dental Laboratory in Bloomfield, Conn., when a customer asked for an image of a corvette to be put on his crown.

Merits and Demerits of Dental Tattoos: 

The prime advantage of tooth tattoo is that the procedure is painless. Furthermore, the tattoos can easily be removed in five minutes in the dentist’s office with just a little grinding with a rubber wheel. 

The major disadvantage is the possibility of plaque build-up around the tattoo, causing an increasing chance of tooth decay.  But with good oral hygiene, this can be avoided.  Further dental tattoos sometimes get abraded with time and needs to be replaced. Moreover unnecessary removal of tooth structure weakens the tooth which compromises the longevity of the tooth. 

CONCLUSION:

Normally this artwork is created on the back teeth, the molars or bicuspids. Most people prefer having it on the cheek side of the tooth, some on the tongue side. They are seen only when the person that has one wants to share what they have, by pulling their cheek out so it could be seen. This artistic medical boom is still in its primitive form and needs lot more research and advancement. This imagination of vibrating, beautiful tattoos which can pick up bacteria to diagnose disease is soon going to not only revolutionize dentistry but also the medical profession. Thus it would be apt to call these tattoos a tattoo with a purpose.