1. Introduction
Tooth health is the foundation of any cosmetic dental work. Porcelain veneers accomplish aesthetic perfection while strengthening and protecting the underlying teeth. While there is a choice to simply whiten the teeth, restoration of worn down, chipped or uneven teeth is not achievable with teeth whitening. Teeth whitening is just a band-aid. Porcelain veneers can make teeth both larger and whiter. In a series of visits to our practice, a beautiful smile is achieved within days, not weeks or months. Your abilities to communicate and to thoroughly digest the materials discussed are the cornerstones of any comprehensive, aesthetic or color dental improvements. We have developed systems that deliver all that is necessary for your success.
The ultimate goal in aesthetic dentistry is to replicate beautiful, natural-looking teeth. That’s what we deliver every day in our dental practice with porcelain veneers. Porcelain veneers restore the natural beauty of teeth in many different scenarios. They transform yellow, discolored teeth into bright, radiant, natural-looking smiles. Porcelain veneers also restore chipped and worn teeth to their original beauty. The transformation is amazing when small/short and uneven teeth are restored with long, contoured, natural-looking porcelain veneers. In addition, they correct misaligned teeth to give patients an even, straight smile. Each transformation is tailored to the individual personality, facial features, and desired look of the patient. Only natural, beautiful shapes are created using my natural tooth molds and patented natural coloring techniques. When beautiful porcelain veneers smile back at you in the mirror, they look just like you were born with them. It’s amazing.
1.1. What are Porcelain Veneers?
What are porcelain veneers? Porcelain veneers are small porcelain jackets that are not strictly for covering damage or making the teeth look cosmetically better, but can also have a positive effect on oral health. Veneers can be used to improve the position, shape, and color of teeth, making them look more natural and healthy. Shades of porcelain veneers are selected to either match your own natural teeth or to brighten the overall appearance of your teeth if you are having a smile makeover. Veneer facings are extremely thin and are bonded to metal, porcelain, or other tooth-colored components. The strength and the esthetics of veneers as compared to traditional crowns have turned them into one of the most popular ways of making smiles glowing and beautiful.
So what are porcelain veneers and just how are they placed? To create a veneer, a certain amount of enamel must be removed from the tooth by a dentist. This ensures a solid foundation for the veneer. Afterward, a model of the patient’s teeth is made and the veneers are constructed in a lab. In the end, the patient will have completely transformed their smile from a beautiful job that was done chairside and lab side in conjunction.
Porcelain Veneers 101: What are porcelain veneers? From Instagram to the covers of glossy magazines, perfect teeth are everywhere. But what makes some people’s pearly whites look so much more flawless than others? One of the biggest secrets in the world of cosmetic dentistry is a procedure involving porcelain veneers. There are limitless ways to change, brighten, and illuminate a smile using porcelain veneers. You can virtually change everything there is to see when full cosmetic reconstruction is done using veneers.
1.2. Benefits of Porcelain Veneers
A great aesthetic result is easy to obtain as the veneers cover many defects, including damaged enamel, which is commonly seen in patients with erosion and teeth grinding problems, and chipped front teeth. Over the last decade, there has been an increase in cosmetic demands, fueled by the extreme makeovers of the movie and television world, as well as from people’s relationships with each other in business and personal settings. The usage of porcelain veneers to create life transformations is exciting and also comes with a raised level of personal comfort. As patients are more aware of their smile’s appearance, a higher level of cosmetic integrity is demanded by the restorations. Starting with diagnosis, proper treatment, and structural considerations, a combined conservative configuration leads to wonderful aesthetic benefits.
Porcelain veneers offer an optimal level of quality and are an aesthetically perfect solution for people who want to change their teeth’s shape, color, and length without extensive orthodontic work. They generate an extraordinarily natural sense of light and are resistant to potential staining within the next decade. Patients can whiten their smiles without worrying about discoloring the restorations, as veneers resist stain and internal discolorations.
2. Is Porcelain Veneers Right for You?
– Deep, stubborn stains that can’t be improved with professional whitening. – Cosmetic cracks or chips. – Irregularly shaped or sized teeth. – Mild to moderate spacing issues. – Delicate cracks and fractures that may compromise the tooth structure if they are left untreated.
What can veneers do? Veneers are extremely versatile. They can change the size, color, shape, and even the alignment of your teeth. Although they are small in profile, they can make a profound difference. If you have cosmetic imperfections such as:
You may have heard a lot about porcelain veneers and how they have the power to transform your smile. That’s absolutely true. Porcelain veneers provide an extremely versatile way to dramatically enhance the aesthetics of your teeth. Many celebrities and other public figures credit their perfect smiles to veneers. However, porcelain veneers are not the optimal option for every person wishing to improve teeth appearance. Is porcelain veneers right for you?
2.1. Ideal Candidates
When veneers are used to restore smiles and repair damage, it can be very difficult to notice the procedure was ever performed, especially in the hands of highly skilled and experienced professionals. However, veneer operations, while safe, are permanent since the front coating of teeth must be filed down slightly in order to cement in the new porcelain shield. Nonetheless, veneers greatly improve the appearance of teeth and are definitely worth pursuing, especially for persons with chipped, discolored, misaligned gap teeth, or abnormally short and small teeth. As well, veneers reduce excessive, uneven spacing with an illusion of strong and great-looking teeth.
The best candidates for veneers are those whose teeth and gums are in overall great shape and therefore are able to receive the full benefits from the procedure. Patients who suffer from tooth decay or gum disease should ensure that their conditions are treated thoroughly before receiving veneers to minimize the possibility of infection. Equally important, an individual should not possess or demonstrate a susceptibility to bruxism, a serious dental condition characterized by the grinding of teeth, in order to prevent further damage following the application of veneers. Opting for the veneer application, albeit the risks to health and increasing the possibility of necessary future treatments, is unwise.
2.2. Considerations before Getting Porcelain Veneers
The crowns do not alter the final color of the tooth. However, if the color of the underlying tooth is too dark, it can show through the crowns. Your dentist will need to determine if the tooth could be successfully bleached to match the color of the crown. The dentist can also request the bleaching of your teeth before the procedure. This will give the porcelain veneers a lighter color. If you have fillings or cavities in a tooth, this procedure will result in a contrast against the rest of your teeth because the tooth is in a stained color and the porcelain used is of a beautiful color. The placement of porcelain veneers when the teeth have old fillings or cavities may be a problem because, as mentioned before, there is a thin lamina layer of porcelain. When necessary, one option to consider is that before placing the veneer, the dentist carefully removes the filling or cavity. A dental crown will be placed, with the end result that the veneer is firmly supported. Any other work that the dentist recommends will give you the most aesthetic overall appearance and will eliminate any potential tooth problems in the future.
3. The Process of Getting Porcelain Veneers
The treatment plan will be discussed, and everything will be prepared. Then, your teeth will be all prepped and ready, depending on which option suits you best. After veneer placement, you’ll have to come back for a review now and again. There are no follow-ups or aftercare therapies as your veneers get a good grip; no need to stress anymore. Just don’t forget to brush your teeth and not use them to open drinks or compress. It’s important not to expect to make careful daily care of your veneers. Brush and floss around the margins of the veneers regularly, delicate washing or even flossing of the teeth is very easy. Advice from your dentist will involve general care. Mucus has an essential impact on appearance, health, and the teeth’s lifetime as they maintain the silicone. Commercial whirlpools or hands or methamphetamine can mess with the once flawless smile. Brushing, parchment, and constant check was simple to treat and to avoid enamel abrasions or other periods caused defects by more general therapy.
The initial consultation appointment usually includes an oral health and awareness check. It is important that you are healthy and know what to expect in terms of health. Once you have the stamp of approval from the dentist, a full consultation about your needs, if it is suitable for your smile, and the results you can hope for, as well as what the process entails, will be held. A mold of your smile to custom-make the thin shells will be taken, as well as preparation work on the teeth that will be veneered. They need to be ‘etched’ with a mild acid solution in order to make them rough and ensure an added grip. No more than 1mm of your enamel is worn away, so there’s no need to worry about them being too thin. The veneers will then be made for you over the following days or even weeks, and permanent veneers will be fixed at the final appointment. At this point, you’ll be out of the clinic with a brand-new smile!
3.1. Initial Consultation
During your initial consultation, your cosmetic dentist will determine if you are a good candidate for porcelain veneers. However, not every patient is a good candidate for porcelain veneers. It is important that you ask questions to find out why porcelain veneers might not be an option for you. If you are not a good candidate, your cosmetic dentist may offer alternative cosmetic dentistry treatments to enhance your smile, such as clear braces, which could be used only on the visible front teeth. Other potential options may be the combination of Invisalign and dental bonding.
If you are considering getting porcelain veneers, the first step is the initial consultation. You will need to schedule an appointment with a cosmetic dentist. If you don’t already have a cosmetic dentist in mind, be sure to ask friends, family, or co-workers for their recommendations. The best advertisement for quality work is a great smile. Inquire about the porcelain veneers. Was the patient pleased with the results? How was the overall cosmetic dentistry experience? If you have a particular dentist in mind, ask for before and after photos of procedures that were performed in addition to asking for a price list. It is important that you decide with confidence and develop a rapport with a dentist who you trust.
3.2. Preparation of Teeth
The diagnostic wax-up is a replica of your future smile made on the putty impression of your teeth. You will then have an opportunity to approve your future smile with wax-up mock-up and afterward to preview the changes with the fabricated trial smile veneers. The stunning changes in your tooth shape, alignment, size, and length will then be there for you to see, before your treatment even begins. Dr. Snyder will take detailed notes regarding your aesthetic goals, tooth preparations, and he will go through any questions or concerns you may have. Completion of Preparation of Teeth After the initial setup is complete, we have another session in which your teeth and gums will be preparing for their new smile. To prepare a tooth for a veneer, a thin layer of the tooth’s surface is removed. This allows the thin porcelain shell to smoothly fit your mouth, with your natural tooth shape and size. No more than 0.5mm of your tooth surface is removed. You will be put under a local anesthetic to ensure this is a painless procedure!
Following a thorough examination, Dr. Snyder will take photographs of your face and dentition. Special customized x-rays may need to be taken. To properly assess your ultimate smile, he utilizes “Dental-Artist” software through specially designed digital images. This reveals the beautiful final result and one can truly visualize what can be achieved through this comprehensive, life-changing process. He will also take a putty impression of any part of your teeth that will be treated with veneers, to send to the dental lab. The supporting teeth around your teeth treatment area is not drill on them but it removes very minimal or NO tooth structure. Our in-house ceramist, Michelle Umansky, will use this impression to make a diagnostic wax-up of your smile.
3.3. Design and Placement
In short, the final design is reached based on a shared project between the clinician and the patient. The patient will then receive the smile she designed. The middle of the upper lip at rest, however, should be above the central incisors, meaning that the incisors need to be lowered. The variables mentioned do not include the mentalis muscle even though it is involved if there is a shift upwards creating a bucco-lingual angle and a protrusion that differ from the norm, allowing co-contraction. In the presence of dental malocclusion or different movements, such as a rise or a shift in the skeleton, the mentum of a vertical dimension increase reverses. If there is no antagonistic interrupting treatment, temporomandibular joint pathologies begin and develop. Management of the vertical dimension is done by the rehabilitative prosthesis but without a preset value.
I don’t want to lecture a clinician on what is aesthetic. That’s not my job or my knowledge, but I will help a clinician know what is functional. I will also remind them to fulfill the patient’s wish list for porcelain veneers. Patients looking for a cosmetic solution have a big wish list, and you should be able to respond to their request to feel self-confident and to approve of and want the final result. It is a difficult target encountering many obstacles — e.g. the vertical dimension of the final manufacturing stage, the problems with placement, and the technician’s mounting of the wax-up. Clinical and laboratory teams will help you meet the patient’s need. Dental technicians are able to modify the aesthetics of the wax-up at the work model or, if the patient has the time and you are working with a reliable laboratory, they can actually test the aesthetic result before definitive manufacture using a prototype wax-up that the patient can try out in their mouth.
4. Aftercare and Maintenance of Porcelain Veneers
Keeping up with good dental habits such as brushing and flossing at least two times a day to keep your mouth, teeth, and veneers clean and in good condition will not only prolong the life of your veneers but will also ensure that your natural teeth stay strong and healthy underneath your restorations. Brushing after meals can help keep your teeth free from stains, which will protect your new smile. Using a soft toothbrush and gentle toothpaste that does not contain abrasive agents will help maintain the shine/finish of your dental veneers, as will using a non-abrasive, alcohol-free mouthwash to keep them clean and fresh. Although dental veneers are strong, it is a good idea to avoid using your front teeth to open anything with your teeth and to avoid a diet that is high in extremely hard foods, such as nuts. It is best to avoid biting down with your front teeth onto any hard plastic product, stringy food, or engaging in habits like biting your nails, pen caps, or chewing gum in competition with veneers to hold them for long-term use and enjoyment. If you are an athlete, consider wearing a mouthguard during competitive games and practices to prevent damage to the dental veneers or your natural teeth – especially if the contact sport is a heavy sport. A dentist or dental hygienist will provide abrasion cleaning to clean them once or twice a year and check for any sudden damage. To whiten existing teeth or professional teeth whitening services, see a dentist. If your veneers become damaged or lost for any reason, be sure to seek dental attention right away to protect your natural teeth in the mouth. Remember to maintain regular dental visits to have the health of your mouth, teeth, and veneers evaluated by your dentist or dental hygienist.
5. Frequently Asked Questions
In addition to being a trusted cosmetic dentist with 20 years of experience with porcelain veneers, Dr. Cole has advanced proficiency with orthopedic corrected gumlines as well. Some types of veneers are made with a type of composite material that is placed directly on the teeth and are referred to as direct veneers. There is no standard chemical composition of the different types of dental veneers. They all vary in some way and are selected as the most appropriate for each individual patient’s custom case.
What type of materials are porcelain veneers made of? Dental ceramic or porcelain veneers are made of pure porcelain for the ultimate life-like restoration. They consist of several thin layers of porcelain, although our ultimate goal is for the veneer to be as conservative without compromising strength which is best determined by the doctor. The advanced materials we use are more durable and vibrant than traditional porcelain can offer. The urethane bond that forms between the veneer and the tooth is protective of the tooth and enhances restoration retention long-term. This bond is provided by the same tooth-colored bond that we use for fillings. Other veneer materials are only bonded to the enamel and do not provide this custom color match bond. Because we only use ceramic and porcelain veneers for our patients, they also remain microscopically bonded to your teeth in a similar manner to a bond insert silver filling.
Who is not a good candidate for porcelain veneers? Patients with heavy clenching/grinding tendencies or long-standing bruxing habits, parafunctional habits, overjet, deep overbite or over-closed bite; deep overbite or over-closed bite; short upper lip must be considered other options for direct or indirect bonding rehab solutions; small anterior template; patients with an incisal edge to edge bite. Young patients that do not cooperate because constant redemonstrations, the patient has alterations of the jaw growth that may lead to a less than ideal final result.
The first professional treatment to whiten teeth involved the use of oxidizing compounds. Whiteners with opposing pH could be responsible for the sensitivity of the treated teeth. If teeth get sensitive, the treatment can be stopped and can be continued with a lower concentration of oxidizing agent or that agent could be combined with fluoride or calcium. Actual whitening methods are based on substances like hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide. The actual whitening procedures are multiple and the techniques employed range from those performed in the dental office by a professional to those done at home, unsupervised, by the patient.
What is the cost of porcelain veneers? Veneers are generally considered a premium cosmetic solution for teeth and can be priced accordingly. The cost of custom veneers varies based on the individual needs of each patient’s smile. To receive a price quote for your specific case, please book a consultation with one of our friendly treatment coordinators.
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