If you’re living with teeth that are heavily filled, discoloured, worn down, chipped or broken; or a smile that is gappy, misaligned or uneven, dental veneers may be your ideal solution.
By contrast with a dental crown, which covers your entire tooth, a dental veneer is simply a thin layer of material which is bonded onto your tooth’s surface. The bulk of your restored tooth is still your own natural material, with the dental veneer on its front visible surface.
In this article we’ll take a look at the two main types of dental veneers, their pros and cons, and whether they tend to stain over the long term.
The first step when you’re thinking about having dental veneers is choosing the right style for your situation. There are two main types of dental veneers:
Direct veneers are made of resin which is applied directly onto your teeth in our dental chair. Depending on your situation you may need some preliminary design work before the veneers are applied, or your dentist may decide to apply them ‘freehand’. The dentist simply builds the veneers up on your tooth by eye, and then modifies the result to perfectly match your teeth.
At Wickham Terrace Dental we don’t often recommend this method, since it can be difficult to exactly match your existing teeth. Instead, we prefer to use our Smile Design technology to precisely plan your restoration, and achieve a more predictable result. While this method adds a little to the time and cost of your treatment, it gives you a far better outcome, especially if we need to make changes to the height or shape of the teeth.
The second type of dental veneer is the porcelain ceramic option, a far more durable and aesthetic result, if a little more expensive.
Our Smile Design technology allows us to digitally create and produce porcelain veneers right here in our in-house dental lab.
This style of veneer will require a very small amount of your tooth enamel – often only about 0.5mm or less – to be removed as preparation. We’ll then scan your prepared teeth, and send this information to our dental technicians for them to create precise tooth restorations.
While you wait for your final veneers, we sometimes need to place temporary acrylic or resin options in the meantime.
Direct veneers can be carried out immediately and very quickly. You can walk in to our practice and walk out with a new smile the same day – in fact, in just a couple of hours! Resin veneers are also less expensive than the porcelain ceramic alternative.
One downside is that their resin material isn’t as durable as ceramic. Resin can’t be polished quite as smoothly as the glazed surface of the ceramics, so it won’t appear as shiny as porcelain – and because resin is rougher and more porous, it may stain over time.
Resin veneers are not as strong as porcelain ceramic veneers, which means they will need to be replaced more often – on average, around every 5 to 10 years. They may also chip or crack, which calls for maintenance and polishing to keep up a glossy surface and appearance.
Resin dental veneers may also retain plaque more easily than porcelain veneers, which means they may stain at the margins and may even result in dental decay if hygiene and diet aren’t ideal.
Finally, they are not as capable at handling excessive forces, such as grinding or clenching, so you may need to wear a night guard or splint to protect your resin veneers at night.
Indirect veneers are beautiful, glossy restorations that are lab-made to match or enhance the shade of your natural teeth. We can create porcelain veneers as translucent or as opaque as needed to recreate the look of your overall smile.
They can be made thinner than resin veneers because the materials are stronger, so often feel better, affect the speech less and look more natural.
They can also last longer, sometimes more than 10 to 20 years when properly looked after – and there’s not as much maintenance required. Porcelain veneers do sometimes pick up some staining around the margins, and can attract food and plaque in this area.
Lastly, they are certainly more expensive than resin veneers, since materials costs are higher and they take a significant amount of time for the highly skilled technicians to ensure a great result.
Even though dental veneers can be used for a wide range of aesthetic issues, there are some cases when they won’t be suitable for you.
For example, if you have larger fillings that wrap around a tooth, you may not be able to have veneers. This is because we need the veneer to bond securely onto your tooth’s enamel – whether you choose the direct or indirect option. Therefore if your tooth’s enamel is severely damaged, or has a large filling, this means we can’t be sure that the veneer will bond entirely securely to the tooth. In this case, you may be able to have a crown placed instead.
If you have severely ground-down teeth, we recommend not having veneers placed until the grinding habit has been dealt with. We can first build up your back teeth to allow more space for veneers in the front of your mouth, and to open up space so your new veneers won’t pop off your teeth when subjected to the pressure of grinding. You may also require a nightguard splint to protect your investment.
If your teeth are very crowded or crooked, we usually need to straighten them before placing veneers to prevent unnecessary tooth structure removal and to ensure a better final outcome.
Lastly, if you suffer from gum disease we will need to treat this issue first, before placing any dental veneers. This is because without treatment, your teeth might become wobbly or your gums will tend to shrink or recede, leaving a visible line around the veneer.
Ceramic dental veneers will stain less than your natural teeth. That’s why many people choose to have veneers to address stains that can’t be removed by teeth whitening. A veneer offers you a smoother surface and more consistent colouration to mask any blemishes on the teeth surface.
It’s important to remember that just like natural teeth, dental veneers can stain with extreme use, for example if you drink a lot of coffee, eat a lot of heavily-pigmented foods such as curries or smoke heavily. The good news, though, is that we can easily remove these extrinsic stains through polishing both your teeth and veneers.
One last consideration is that composite resin direct veneers are made from more porous, rougher material, which makes extrinsic stains more difficult to remove.
If your veneers aren’t looking as beautiful as they once did, there are some things we can do. The first technique is to have a professional cleaning, to polish away any extrinsic stains (on top of the veneer) to bring back its lustre.
Because dental veneers are very thin, they can easily reveal the condition of your teeth underneath. And because your natural teeth will become duller as you age, in-chair or take home teeth whitening may be able to restore a brighter look.
Lastly, if you notice stains around the margins of your veneers, this could mean there is de-bonding or leakage around the edge. Often caused by plaque or food building up, this may mean the veneer needs to be removed and replaced to avoid the whole tooth being lost.
If you’d like to know more about direct and indirect dental veneers, and get advice on which is the ideal style for you, get in touch with the Wickham Terrace Dental team on 3831 3031 or contact us online now.