When you visit a dentist near you, it is normal to feel slightly nervous over the kind of feedback you will receive after your dental exam. Still, it is not enough to only rely on your dental expectations as the determining factors for the dental procedures you expect for your treatment. You would be surprised at how much dental work can be achieved using just one oral appliance, for instance, a dental veneer.
What Are Dental Veneers?
They are tooth-shaped, tooth-colored shell-like appliances used in dentistry to restore teeth. Veneers are tooth-colored, typically made of porcelain materials, fashioned after the impressions of your natural teeth.
Many patients closely associate dental veneers with crowns because they are similar in some ways. They both work to restore the structure of teeth. However, crowns and veneers differ in the amount of coverage they offer your teeth. While dental crowns cover an entire tooth, dental veneers only go on the front surfaces of your teeth. This difference makes a major difference even in Howe porcelain veneers are installed.
Steps Involved in Getting Porcelain Veneers
Getting porcelain veneers at Family Dental Care is not a straightforward procedure, typical of dental bonding processes. The steps involved in getting veneers are:
- Numbing – although the procedure is not supposed to be painful, local anesthesia will be used to numb your mouth to eliminate any possible discomfort during your procedure. It is also a way to ensure you do not encounter heightened teeth sensitivity that may make you restless on the dentist’s chair.
- Preparing the enamel – involves calculated efforts to remove part of your tooth’s enamel. The trimming of your enamel is necessary to make room for the dental veneer. Only a small part of your enamel is removed, equivalent to the size of the dental veneer to be placed. At this stage, the dentist will also be shaping your tooth to match the dental plan he/she has in mind that will correct your dental problem.
- Taking impressions of your teeth – once the target teeth are ready, your dentist will take their impressions. These impressions are translated into a mold, used as a reference to create the dental veneers for your procedure. This step is crucial for traditional veneers that need to be taken to a dental laboratory to be created.
- Dental bonding – this part of the procedure may happen on a different dental visit, about two weeks after the initial steps. The process entails attaching the veneers to your teeth using special dental cement. After application, the dentist uses laser light to cure the dental cement, adhering the veneer teeth permanently to your natural teeth. Any excess spillage of dental cement is removed to ensure your veneer teeth have a similar luster as your natural teeth.
When Are Veneers Used?
It is not every day that a veneers’ dentist in 60409 recommends getting them for treatment. It is dependent on the condition of teeth relative to the dental expectations you have. Some of the areas where dental veneers prove useful are:
- Discolored teeth – more than just the general yellowing of teeth, some patients have stubborn stains on their teeth. The stains are often concentrated on just a few teeth in their mouth, particularly the front teeth. As an alternative for whitening your teeth, your dentist can recommend getting tooth veneers.
- Spaces between teeth – at Family Dental Care, we handle several patients who have small spaces between teeth. It is an orthodontic problem that would require wearing dental braces for several months to realign the teeth. However, we can offer dental veneers to help close small spaces between your teeth and beautify your smile.
- Cracks, chips, and breaks on teeth – after a dental accident, you can deform the structure of your tooth by racking it or have a chunk of your tooth broken. Such a tooth can be repaired and restored using a dental veneer.
- Unusually short teeth – have you ever wished that your front teeth would be a little longer than they are? With dental veneers, you are covered. Dental experts can use veneer teeth to elongate your teeth and make them look longer than they naturally are. This trick can even reduce the appearance of a gummy smile.
- Unusually shaped teeth – teeth contouring is a crucial concept in cosmetic dentistry that allows dentists to reshape weirdly shaped teeth, evening their appearances.
