The Ins and Outs of Using Dental Veneers

What are dental veneers?

Dental veneers are wafer-thin pieces of porcelain that are used to replace damaged enamel on your teeth in order to rejuvenate your smile. Also referred to as porcelain veneers, dental veneers have a wide range of applications, allowing us to restore your teeth if they are broken, cracked, or chipped, among other things. The dental veneers are extremely thin, which allows them to be easily placed onto the teeth in a way that looks natural. In fact, dental veneers are so natural looking, that most of our patients will even forget which of their teeth have been repaired with the veneers.

How are dental veneers placed?
Before dental veneers are actually placed, we need to determine if you are a good candidate for the product. Typically most people are, but we will schedule an initial first consultation to determine if there are any underlying problems that may prevent you from getting dental veneers and would require different treatment options. During this consultation, we would conduct a smile analysis, which tells us what kind of a smile you are hoping to achieve, and what products can be used to help get you there. We sometimes do a cosmetic imaging to demonstrate the type of smile that dental veneers can help you to achieve.

Once we decide on dental veneers as a great option, we will schedule fitting and placing appointments. The first appointment begins with shaving away a small portion of the enamel. Usually, dental veneers do not require more than a few millimeters to be shaved away. The reason for shaving the enamel is so that the porcelain can fit flush with the tooth, making sure to maintain the natural contour of the tooth, and ensuring that the porcelain veneers look and feel like real teeth. Next, we will make an impression of your teeth and send it along with notes to the dental lab.  While they are creating your permanent veneer, you will need to wear a temporary one that will be removed in a week or two.We will make sure that the color, shape, and size of the veneers gives your teeth a look of perfection and once we have achieved that, the dental veneers will be cemented in place using dental cement.

What are dental veneers used for?
Dental veneers are extremely malleable solutions, so we use them for a wide range of solutions. The most common, and commonly read about, reason people chose veneers is the desire for a perfect Hollywood type smile. This means perfectly shaped, perfectly white teeth. To do this veneers are an excellent choice since they can cover most imperfections perfectly. As such porcelain veneers can be used to correct minor alignment issues, to ensure that you have not unsightly spaces or gaps between your teeth, and to ensure that the teeth are all the right length and size. Veneers are also used to improve and whiten teeth that are stubbornly refusing to respond to the traditional tooth whitening formulas. As we mentioned earlier, one of applications that dental veneers have is to fix broken, chipped, or cracked teeth. This solution is used because the porcelain veneers do not require a great deal of the normal enamel to be removed. Unlike a dental crown, the veneers fit in with the enamel after a few millimeters has been shaved off.

Teeth Whitening  >  Cosmetic Dentist

Common Reasons People Need to Wear Dental Veneers

Using dental veneers, we can repair a multitude of problems that occur with your teeth. We have found that the wafer-thin porcelain or composite dental veneers are an excellent solution to cracked teeth, chipped teeth, teeth that are discolored and even misaligned teeth. There is a wide spectrum of reasons why someone should consider veneers, and as more people become aware that they do not have to live with a less than perfect smile, veneers are growing in popularity and use. As a dentist, having a remedy that is easy and can restore teeth to their former glory makes it much easier to create the beautiful smile that most people are looking for. 

While dental veneers are a proven and effective solution, we want to make sure that our patients understand that ultimately there is nothing we prefer more than to salvage your own natural teeth. Proper hygiene, regular dental cleanings, and ensuring that we can catch any problems early on are ways you can help protect your natural teeth. It also helps, for you, to know some of the ways teeth get damaged, resulting in your needing dental veneers. There are three main ways that your teeth get worn down, leading to the need for a restoration. 

• Eroding of the teeth: Everybody brushes their teeth with the hope of staving off this condition, which occurs naturally and over time. Tooth erosion happens when you drink or place a piece of food in your mouth. The acids in the foot interact with your tooth enamel and start to erode, or eat away at the enamel. Eventually, this leads to the exposure of the dentin, which is much softer and easily eroded. Eventually, this leads to cavities and other complications. In more severe cases, tooth erosion can lead to chips, cracks, and damage to teeth that would have to be repaired using dental veneers. 
• Attrition of the teeth: All people have a normal level of attrition since this is the normal wear and tear that teeth experience by rubbing against the hardest substance in the body, other teeth. Enamel is by far the hardest substance in the human body; it is also the most brittle. When teeth rub up against each other in a constant state, eventually the enamel wears out, and this is known as attrition. Sadly this problem is greatly exasperated in people who tend to grind their teeth due to anxiety or stress. Night grinding, and even day grinders, can eventually wear their teeth down to the point where they have to get repair treatments like dental veneers. 
• Abrasion of the teeth: Abrasion is perhaps the fastest way people find themselves needing dental veneers, or even replacement surgeries like dental implants. An abrasion occurs when people use their teeth as tools instead of using a man-made tool. Cracks and chips most commonly are abrasion caused when someone tries to tear a bag or open a bottle with their teeth. Abrasions can also occur by eating extremely hard food, like chewing on the kernels of popcorn. There is rarely any other way to fix abrasions, so most patients opt for dental veneers to fix that ugly chip or crack. 

You can reduce the likelihood of needing a restoration by taking precautionary measures and visiting our office twice a year.  If, however, your teeth become sensitive or damaged, we can help restore them, using dental veneers.