Using the strength and beauty of porcelain, we are able to bond a thin conservative porcelain facing onto your tooth, restoring the optimal shape and esthetics that your natural teeth should have. This is a more long-lasting option when a full facial restoration is indicated.
Dr. Maria Bustamante in Cincinnati, Ohio has been providing her patients with a variety of cosmetic options including porcelain veneers to improve their smiles. These are the longest lasting and most esthetic options that we have available. Because veneers are made of porcelain, they will not stain easily, and they are also quite durable. The material, being colored glass, picks up the colors of the adjacent teeth and the underlying tooth structure, so they tend to blend in quite well!
Realistically, they should last decades. If you are hard on your teeth, meaning your chew ice and practice kick-boxing and eat a lot of sweets and don’t brush, then of course, just like your own natural teeth, that can shorten their life span. We have patients who had veneers done 20 years ago and they are still holding up!
Nope! We do encourage rinsing after eating sweets and using a gentle brush around the edges of the porcelain to minimize the risk of decay or abrasion which could affect the integrity of the bond. You should brush and floss gently around them as if they were your own teeth. When you floss, you might gently make sure you pull towards the tooth and not create or catch on a ledge tugging the veneer off.
While they are bonded quite sturdily, they could pop off it you aren’t careful. We do our best to make sure that the cement is smooth and the margins where it connects to the tooth are smooth, minimizing any ledges or rough spots that could trap bacteria and food or catch on a piece of floss.
No, once they are placed on your teeth, they will pretty much be that color, so if you were thinking of bleaching your other teeth, you should do that first, then wait a couple of weeks before getting veneers. If you bleach the tooth underneath the veneer, you need to be careful that it isn’t dried out, because they may look whiter, but over time will darken. For this reason, we suggest using a custom tray to selectively avoid bleaching the teeth you will be masking with a veneer later. Studies have shown that those bleached teeth might darken over time, so it’s best to mask the darker spots on a tooth with a white opaquer first, and then put a veneer over the rest of the tooth.
The price and procedure for a veneer is comparable to a porcelain crown. As a result, the fees are quite similar to doing a crown at our office. If you have a large, old composite filling that is failing or you had trauma to a corner of your tooth, then a porcelain veneer is a good alternative. Sometimes, the teeth can be whitened or orthodontically straightened — two conservative options for veneers.
Give us a call if you are in the Cincinnati area and looking into your options for cosmetic dentistry. We are accepting new patients and welcome second-opinions.
