At ProActive Dental Studio, we offer porcelain veneers, which are an effective and easy way to improve the appearance of your smile.
What are porcelain veneers?
Porcelain veneers are ultra-thin shells of tooth-coloured material which are bonded to the front of the tooth.
This procedure requires little or no anesthesia, and can be the ideal choice for improving the appearance of your front teeth.
Porcelain veneers are placed to mask discolorations, to brighten teeth, and to improve your smile.
Highly resistant to permanent staining from coffee, tea, or even cigarette smoking, the wafer-thin porcelain veneers can achieve a tenacious bond to the tooth, resulting in a natural and aesthetically pleasing appearance.
Why a porcelain veneer?
Porcelain veneers are an excellent alternative to dental crowns in many situations, since they provide a much more conservative approach to changing a tooth's color, size, or shape.
Veneers can mask undesirable defects such as tetracycline stains, irregularities from an injury to the teeth, or discolouration as a result of root-canal therapy.
Patients with gaps between their front teeth, or chips in their front teeth also have excellent results with veneers.
Generally, veneers will last for many years - this technique for immediately enhancing your smile has shown remarkable longevity.
What happens during the procedure?
The entire porcelain veneers procedure takes place over 3 separate appointments:
Diagnosis & Treatment Planning
It's critical that you take an active role in your smile design. Spend time with us in the decision-making and planning of how you want your smile to look. Have more than one consultation, if necessary, to feel comfortable that we understand your objectives.
Preparation of Teeth
To prepare the teeth for the porcelain veneers, the teeth are lightly buffed to allow for the small added thickness of the veneer. Usually, about a half a millimeter of the tooth is removed, which may require local anesthetic.
A mold is taken of the teeth, which is sent to the laboratory that will fabricate the veneers. This usually takes 1 - 2 weeks.
Bonding
The final appointment involves bonding the veneer to the teeth. Your dentist will first temporarily fit your veneer on your tooth to evaluate the fit and colour.
Once the dentist is satisfied that your veneer looks just right, she will apply it permanently with a special bonding cement, and the cure and harden it with a special light beam.
Lastly, she will remove any excess cement, evaluate your bite, and make any necessary final adjustments.
Results
Porcelain veneers are reasonable facsimiles of natural teeth, not perfect replacements. It is not uncommon to see slight variations in the color of porcelain veneers upon close inspection, this occurs even in natural teeth.
Nevertheless, this procedure can greatly enhance your smile, and can heighten inner satisfaction and self-esteem.
We always recommend that our patients who are having major restorative work done (implants, crowns, veneers, bridges) do a course of bleaching prior to having the work done.
Otherwise if the restorative work is matched to the yellow or grey teeth, there is no way to change the colour afterwards.