Am I Too Young for Porcelain Veneers

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I am twenty-two years old and have had my braces off for several years. Despite that, there is still a slight gap between my front teeth. I would like to get some porcelain veneers because I also have some chips and have always thought my teeth were too short. My dentist hinted I may be too young for porcelain veneers and to wait until I was 25. If I am too young, should I try to get Invisalign to close the little gaps? Or maybe dental crowns because my dentist said that could make the teeth longer?

Melanie

Dear Melanie,

A porcelain veneer held up against a tooth

I fear that your dentist is steering your toward dental crowns because he knows how to do those. Doing dental crowns is taught to every dentist. However, advanced cosmetic work, such as porcelain veneers, has to be learned after dental school in post-doctoral training. If the teeth are healthy, grinding them down for dental crowns makes no sense.

There is a second factor here. Just because he can do dental crowns, doesn’t mean they will look beautiful or natural. Most dentists will just use a standard shade guide. With back teeth, that is fine. But, with front teeth, there is a lot more that goes into making it look natural and matching the other teeth perfectly.

Invisalign, while a great option for straightening teeth, is not great a closing those tiny spaces left after braces. That is because those tend to open back up fairly quickly after you stop orthodontics. You could have some direct dental bonding placed there to close the gap, but they tend to pick up stains quickly and will have to be replaced more than you’d like.

Your best option to deal with all the issues you described including the lengthening of your teeth is to get porcelain veneers. Plus, they are even more stain resistant than your natural teeth and should last for many years.

So, what about the age issue? The fact is, that once your teeth are fully erupted, which generally happens around the age of 18, you are old enough for porcelain veneers. The caveat will be to find a dentist who can provide you with a beautiful result. You do not want to end up as one of those cosmetic dentistry horror stories.

Look at their smile gallery, which contains before and after pictures of cosmetic work they’ve done. Look specifically at their porcelain veneers cases. If they’re not stunning, find someone else to do them. If a dentist does not have a smile gallery on their website, then they don’t do enough cosmetic work to be good at it.

I hope this helps.
This blog is brought to you by East Cobb Dentist Dr. Cristi Cheek.

Options for Fixing My Nephew’s Smile

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For my Nephew’s graduation, I gave him a gift of fixing his teeth. His mother never had enough money for braces and I didn’t want him spending his entire adult life feeling uncomfortable about his appearance. I was thinking orthodontics, but his dentist told him that he could get his smile fixed much faster with Lumineers without having a mouth full of metal, but he’s asking close to $25,000! Is there some other option for him that is faster than braces, but not as expensive as Lumineers?

Selena

Dear Selena,

A comparison of braces versus Invisalign

I’m glad you wrote. If the only thing wrong with your nephew’s smile was that fact that his teeth were misaligned then what his dentist is recommending would be a massive overtreatment. Lumineers are a brand of porcelain veneers. When someone is looking for that Hollywood smile, that is when they get porcelain veneers. They can change the shape, size, and color of your teeth at the same time. If you’re just looking to straighten your teeth, or even straighten and whiten your teeth, then there is a much better option.

Invisalign uses clear aligners to straighten a patient’s teeth. Even at a conversational distance, no one would be able to tell that your nephew is wearing orthodontics. They also work in half the time of traditional braces. If he does need teeth whitening, you can save money here because the aligner can double as teeth whitening trays. His dentist can simply provide him with the gel, which he can wear in the aligners at a point in the day or night that is most convenient for him.

What If He Wants a Total Smile Makeover?

A porcelain veneer being held up to a tooth

Let’s say there is more wrong with his teeth and he does need a total smile makeover, and it is something you are wiling to pay for, I would not go to a dentist who is recommending Lumineers to have this procedure done. This particular brand of porcelain veneers are highly marketed to inexperienced cosmetic dentists as being easy to place. Unfortunately, this does not mean that it is easy to create beautiful smiles. In fact, smile makeovers are not adequately taught in dental school. In order for a dentist to do it well means that they need to invest in post-doctoral training.

A second problem with Lumineers is the fact that their parent company requires dentists to use their lab, which is not known for creating good results. What you would want instead, is to find an expert cosmetic dentist and let them choose the brand as well as the lab.

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

Solution for a HUGE Tooth Gap

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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,

Image of Invisalign Aligners

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.

White Spots on Teeth

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I’ve had white spots on my two front teeth my whole life. I like how they look, but my other teeth are dingy in comparison. My dentist is suggesting Lumineers, but I think that is more than I am wanting to pay. Can I not just whiten my teeth without whitening the two front teeth?

Laurie

Dear Laurie,

tooth bleaching trays

Teeth whitening trays

 

I am glad you decided not to go with Lumineers. If all you want to do is whiten your teeth, that would be a massive, not to mention expensive, overtreatment. Additionally, Lumineers in particular are highly marketed to inexperienced cosmetic dentists. That is the last person you would want to have do a smile makeover for you. It takes significant post-doctoral training, not to mention an artistic eye, to do it well.

In your case, I would go with teeth whitening. However, teeth whitening works on teeth evenly. Ask your dentist to provide you with at-home bleaching trays. These should be custom fit to your bite. However, because of your two front teeth, you’ll want him or her to cut out the front teeth from the trays. This way the only thing being whitened are the teeth without the white spots.

For the benefit of others, I want to mention there is another type of white spots that takes a completely different treatment. If someone has white spots, they could have been there from childhood, as Laurie; but, often white spots appear after braces. These spots are different. They are decalcification spots, which are a precursor to tooth decay. Those who are wearing braces, often don’t realize how difficult it is to adequately brush around all those wires and brackets. This is why we recommend Invisalign whenever someone is a candidate. These are removable and make it super easy to upkeep your dental hygiene.

The solution for the type of white spots from braces, requires a skilled cosmetic dentist. The white spots have to be gently removed and then they can be recovered with composite bonding.

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

What Else is Needed with Porcelain Veneers?

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I had planned on getting a smile makeover with porcelain veneers but my dentist keeps adding other procedures I need before I can get the veneers. Getting a full checkup and cleaning I understood. Getting Invisalign and teeth whitening seems excessive. Are these really necessary? I was under the impression that porcelain veneers can make your teeth look straight. The only thing I have that could “possibly”  need some orthodontics is one canine tooth that is a little in front of the adjacent tooth. It seems unnecessarily expensive to do that for one tooth.

Letticia

Dear Letticia,

porcelain veneers

 

I’m glad you wrote and can help give you some direction here. Let’s start with the teeth whitening. How much of this you need will depend on how many porcelain veneers you plan on getting as well as how wide your smile is. Let us say, just as an example, that you only plan on getting four porcelain veneers. However, when you smile, you can see ten teeth. If the veneers are very white, but your natural teeth are more of a taupe it will be very obvious that you have four “fake” teeth on your front teeth. If however, you whiten your teeth first, then the adjacent teeth will blend more naturally with your new smile makeover. If you are getting plenty of porcelain veneers on your top teeth, then the only teeth you may want to whiten is your bottom arch so it is not a stark contrast to your top arch. This is much more affordable.

The Invisalign is a completely different story. Based on what you described to me, you should not have to have any orthodontics before getting porcelain veneers. Your understanding of a smile makeover and what porcelain veneers can do is more solid than your dentist’s. The fact that your dentist does not know how to make those teeth look straight tells me he is not skilled enough in porcelain veneers. Don’t force him to do this. You will be unhappy with the results. Instead, find a dentist with more expertise. Look at some before and after pictures of work they’ve done to ensure you would be happy to have those results.

This blog is brought to you by East Cobb Dentist Dr. Christi Cheek.
Click here to learn about our free virtual smile makeover consult.

Can a Dental Implant Fix Her Triangled Teeth?

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I have a complicated case and I am not sure what to do. I have a baby canine tooth that has finally succumbed to decay. That tooth never fell out because my teeth shifted a bit when I was a child after a dentist pulled a baby molar. Now my canine tooth came in but in front of my first and second bicuspids. They’ve formed a sort of triangle. Not only is it embarrassing, but it is nearly impossible to keep thoroughly clean, though I am as diligent as I can be with it. My dentist feels it is too far away and the root system too tangled to use orthodontics to get it in the right place. I do have to remove the baby canine and I just want to have a normal and hopefully attractive smile.

Kelly

Dear Kelly,

dental implant diagram

I would think most dentists, who love their field, would be thrilled to work on a case as complicated as yours. It is possible your dentist feels in over his head with this one. Every dentist goes into the profession with different goals. He may just love being a good bread and butter family dentist and like keeping people’s teeth healthy but not get into all the complicated cosmetic stuff. That’s okay, we need good family dentists.

The only problem for you right now is you need someone with experience in cosmetics. There are a few ways to handle this, but it would take someone looking at your specific bite and x-rays to give you a definitive answer. Here are some possibilities, though.

Options for Fixing This

First, you could extract the baby and adult canine teeth, then use Invisalign to get the opening the right size, along with giving the other teeth proper alignment, and then have a dental implant placed in the area where your canine goes.

Another possibility, if the canine can’t be moved, is to extract it, then have your first bicuspid shaped to look like a canine in the front. That has been done many times with good results.

The key for you, however, it to make sure the dentist you see has the training, experience, and artistry you need to give you a beautiful finished product. I would make sure you look at their smile gallery, which is a sort of brag book for dentists, to see what type of results they get. Then, if they’re good, trust their instinct on the best way to handle this situation.

When Baby Molars are Extracted

I don’t know if you are currently a parent, but I want to tell you how you can avoid this situation with your children. Whoever your pediatric dentist was made a critical error. Baby molars need to stay in place until a child is at least 12 years old. Otherwise, you risk the teeth shifting, which leads to crowding and a complicated bite such as you are facing now.

There are times, however, that a molar cannot be saved. When that is the case, it is imperative the dentist puts a space maintainer in the area in order to keep the teeth in proper alignment. It sounds like your childhood dentist neglected that. Make sure whatever pediatric dentist you have for your children, doesn’t make the same mistake.

I know finding the right dentist will give you a smile you are proud of.
This blog is brought to you by Marietta Dentist Dr. Cristi Cheek.

Zoom Whitening for Uneven Color?

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My daughter recently had her braces removed and there were white spots on her teeth. Our dentist suggested we do Zoom Whitening, which is supposed to be very strong but it didn’t really work for us. Is there another option?

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

Braces side by side with Invisalign

The one thing your dentist was right about is that Zoom Whitening is very strong. It will get your teeth very white in a short period of time. However, it is not the right treatment for uneven colored teeth. Your daughter’s dentist may be a fine general dentist, but she has a profound misunderstanding of cosmetic procedures. No matter what type of teeth whitening you do, it will whiten your teeth evenly. This means the uneven color, in your daughter’s case the white spots, will still be there.

White Spots After Braces

The white spots your daughter has are likely decalcification spots, which are a precursor to tooth decay. These are common after braces because it is so hard to brush adequately to get around all those metal wires and brackets. It takes tenacity and dedication to brushing to keep your teeth healthy while wearing traditional braces.

This is one of the reasons we often recommend Invisalign to adults and teenagers responsible enough to keep up with them and keep them in. Because these are removable, it makes it so much easier to brush and floss your teeth adequately while straightening your teeth.

The Solution to White Spots

My recommendation for your daughter would be to have dental bonding done on the teeth with the spots. The decalcified enamel can be gently removed and then dental bonding can be placed over it, seamlessly blending with your natural tooth structure. That being said, I do not recommend you use your family dentist for this. It is an advanced cosmetic dentistry procedure that requires post-doctoral training. Your dentist didn’t even understand teeth whitening, which is the simplest procedure.

Look for a dentist with experience in dental bonding and then ask to see before and after images of cases they have done. This will tell you whether or not you’ll be pleased with the results.

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

Problem Lateral Incisors

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Both my lateral incisors have been a bit of a disaster. One of them is congenitally missing. The other is slightly deformed. I’m planning on getting this fixed. All of it. What do you recommend?

Amaya

Dear Amaya,

dental implant being placed in three stages

I’m glad you wrote. The first thing you’ll want to do is make sure the space is appropriately opened for the tooth replacement. Invisalign is the ideal treatment for this. You can straighten them invisibly and comfortably— no metal wires and brackets. Then it is time to make your smile beautiful.

Depending on the color of your teeth, you may want to whiten them. The reason for that is once your restorations are made, their color is permanent. You don’t want to have them a color you won’t completely love. If you are pleased with the color than no worries. You can skip the teeth whitening.

Once it is time to replace the tooth, I suggest a dental implant. This is the best tooth replacement around. It will be like having a healthy, natural tooth there. You will need to find a dentist who is experienced in placing dental implants. It requires post-doctoral training, so make sure you ask the dentist where they received their dental implant training. Dental school isn’t enough. If they’re offended by the question, they are not the best dentist to do it. Move on.

As for the deformed tooth. I haven’t seen the tooth, so a lot of it will depend on the shape and condition of the tooth. What I recommend for that is you see a great cosmetic dentist. Have them look at the tooth. Based on that examination they will either suggest a dental crown or a porcelain veneer. Make sure you check out their smile gallery to make sure you like the results they get. If you do, make a quick call to their office to make sure the images are from cases the dentist did himself and not just stock photos.

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