Lumineers Archives - Cheek Dental

I have a large tooth gap. I think my dentist said it was about 8-10 millimeters between my front two teeth. I didn’t want braces, so he suggested snap-on smile. I paid for the x-rays and the dentist sent everything in to the company. I received a call this week telling me I’m not really a good candidate for that procedure. He said we could look into Lumineers. These cost a whole lot more than the snap-on smile. If it is my only option, I will bite the bullet. Before I did, though, I wanted to get another opinion on how to handle this.

Mike

Dear Mike,

I am glad you wrote. Please, please don’t move forward with the Lumineers plan. First, the gap between your two front teeth is substantial. This is large enough to fit another tooth in. It would take one of the top cosmetic dentists in the country to do this correctly. Your dentist said he would “look into” Lumineers. This tells me that he is not trained in cosmetic dentistry. Lumineers is just one brand of porcelain veneers. While the Lumineers brand is highly marketed to inexperienced cosmetic dentists as being easy to place, most expert cosmetic dentists find the Lumineers brand inferior. Plus, being easy to put on the teeth has nothing to do with the skill required to make them beautiful and natural looking.

You don’t have to have braces to get the gap closed. I would look into getting Invisalign. These use clear aligners to straighten your teeth instead of the metal wires and brackets that are used with traditional braces. Even at a conversational distance, noone would know that you are straightening your teeth.

Invisalign has another hidden benefit. The aligners can double as teeth whitening trays. Your dentist can provide you with whitening gel that you can wear in the aligners at a time that is convenient to you. This allows you to straighten and whiten your teeth simultaneously.

This blog is brought to you by East Cobb Dentist Dr. Cristi Cheek.

I wonder if you can tell me what you think of the new Lumineers over old technique. My dentist originally gave me Lumineers that were not nearly as white as I wanted. At the time, the technology did not exist to make them as white as I wanted. I’ve tried whitening them with teeth whitening, but it’s never worked. My dentist did some research and learned the nature of Lumineers means that teeth whitening won’t work on them. Now, the technology has advanced that I can get my Lumineers whiter. I was thinking of having new ones placed on top of my old ones, which my dentist said is possible. I just don’t want to waste money if it is not a good idea, like the whitening we tried.

Callie

Dear Callie,

I’m going to tell you up front that your dentist is not qualified to redo your smile makeover. You should know that the technology was always available to make your Lumineers white. Your dentist probably just didn’t know how to do it. That doesn’t surprise me because the Lumineers brand is highly marketed to untrained and inexperienced cosmetic dentists. He should also have known that teeth whitening wouldn’t work. In fact, the whitening will only work on natural tooth structure. It is not limited to Lumineers. It will not whiten any type of dental work.

New Lumineers Over Old

While technically you can put new Lumineers over old ones, I don’t recommend it. It is just as much work to place Lumineers on top of one another as it is to completely redo them. However, it is double the risk because now you have two sets of bonding that can fail– the old bonding as well as the new bonding. You are safer just getting them redone completely.

It is perfectly okay to go to one dentist for your general dental work and another for your cosmetic work. This is because doing smile makeovers is not taught in dental school. Instead, a dentist has to study it post-doctorally. Because there is no recognized specialty in cosmetic dentistry there is no way for patients to know who has invested in this training and who hasn’t.

What I would like you to do is to look at the smile gallery of some cosmetic dentists in your area to see who does beautiful work. Find a dentist whose smile makeovers are stunning. Don’t be surprised if the dentist you pick suggests a different brand of porcelain veneers. Many expert cosmetic dentists prefer a different brand.

This blog is brought to you by East Cobb Cosmetic Dentist Dr. Cristi Cheek.