Everything You Need to Know About Dental Veneers

At Iqaluit Dental Clinic, we know how your smile affects your daily life and self-esteem. While there are several options on the market to restore your smile, veneers are a cost-effective solution for fixing cosmetic issues. Let’s check out everything you need to know about veneers.

The Details

1. Veneers – Dental veneers are thin shells that have the same colour as your teeth and are attached to the front surface of your teeth to improve your smile and the cosmetic look of your teeth. They may be permanently bonded to your teeth or made from materials like resin-composite or porcelain and are usually used for broken, chipped, discoloured, or smaller-than-usual teeth.

Veneers are very flexible as well. You may get just one veneer for one broken tooth or get a set of six to eight veneers to create a symmetrical smile. Usually, most people opt to get veneers applied to the top front eight teeth.

2. Types of veneers – Veneers are usually made from resin-composite or porcelain. They require intense prep work. For applying these types of veneers, a bit of your tooth is ground down partially to make the veneers fit perfectly and mimic natural-looking teeth. Since this process involves grinding past the enamel, it requires local anaesthesia and is an irreversible process.

On the other hand, there are no-prep veneers like Vivaneers or Lumineers that are less invasive and require less prep time. However, no-prep veneers aren’t as affordable as traditional porcelain or resin-composite veneers and don’t retain their colour as long. 

3. Porcelain vs Resin-composite veneers – Both porcelain and resin-composite veneers are traditional dental veneers that have their own strengths and weaknesses. There are several factors that may affect your choice of material. When it comes to cost, porcelain veneers are more expensive since the process requires more fraction of the tooth to be removed and hence more material for construction.

Porcelain veneers also lose out in terms of procedural convenience. While resin-composite veneers can be applied with just one visit to the dentist, porcelain veneers require more than one visit. However, porcelain veneers make up for that extra cost and initial inconvenience by offering higher longevity and durability. They also look much better than resin composites since they are able to reflect light to create a more seamless look on your tooth. In the end, it depends on your unique situation and the type of veneers your dentist recommends you. 

4. Cost of dental veneers – Your insurance wouldn’t cover veneers since they are considered cosmetic procedures. That means you need to pay out of pocket for the entire procedure. Usually, the cost of porcelain veneers ranges anywhere between $1000 to $2500 per tooth. If you opt for composite veneers, they would be cheaper. Expect to pay around $400 to $2000 for them.

Apart from the materials, the cost of veneers depends on various other factors including the brand available at your dentist, the cost of living in your area, the expertise and reputation of the dentist, and more. If you want to lower the cost of dental veneers significantly, you may opt for a clinic with dentistry students that are supervised by dentists.      

5. Problems fixed by dental veneers – As mentioned above, dental veneers are mostly used for cosmetic purposes to grant you a more symmetrical and brighter smile. Depending on the type of veneers you choose, your oral hygiene, and maintenance, they can last up to a decade. The high cost doesn’t seem too bad when you consider the long-term benefits. Here are the cosmetic issues that can be fixed with veneers:

• Uneven colouring or severe discolouration of teeth that can’t be fixed with whitening.
• Gaps in the teeth.
• Chipped or broken teeth.
• Pointed, asymmetrical, or unusually shaped teeth.
• Worn down teeth.
• Teeth that are smaller than usual.

6. Prepping for veneers – Before you get your veneers, you’ll need to have a preliminary appointment with your dentist. You’ll need to discuss the types of veneers that are right for you and how many you want to have placed. In some cases, dentists will recommend a correction period with braces if you have crooked or unaligned teeth.

During the preliminary visit, your dentist would take multiple X-ray scans of your mouth to determine the health of your teeth. They’ll look for gum disease, and tooth decay and figure out if there’s a need for root canal surgery. Bad teeth health would disqualify you from getting veneers since the teeth go through significant stress when it is ground for the veneers.

If you’re the right candidate for veneers, your dentist would trim down a portion of your teeth on the next appointment. Usually, they trim down up to half a millimetre of your tooth during this stage. After that, they take a mould of your teeth so that your veneers can be custom-made to perfection at a lab. 

7. Veneer procedure – It usually takes around a couple of weeks to create custom veneers for your teeth after the mould is taken. After that, you can set an appointment with your dentist so that he or she can accurately evaluate the shape, fit and colouration of the veneers to make sure they are perfect for you.

Next, the dentist cleans your teeth thoroughly and uses a grinding tool to create a rough texture on your tooth to attach the veneer. After that, dental cement is used to bond the veneer with the tooth. UV light will be used to harden the cement quickly.

Once the veneers are cemented and the anaesthetic wears off, you can start chewing or eating food normally. There’s no extended recovery period. Make sure the veneers last you as long as possible by maintaining good oral hygiene, using a mouthguard while sleeping, and not chewing or biting on cold and hard objects like metal and ice.         

Conclusion

At Iqaluit Dental Clinic, we believe that veneers are the best option for correcting cosmetic issues like discoloured, chipped, or cracked teeth. They can be cost-effective compared to more robust and permanent solutions like dental implants and are less invasive.