Dr. Hall,
It’s actually my husband that needs the Lumineers. My husband has tetracycline stained teeth, but we don’t have $20 grand for veneers.
Sincerely,
Barbara from Boca Raton
Barbara,
In the case of your husband, I would not recommend Lumineers. There are two reasons.
To adequately cover tetracycline stains, the veneer needs to wrap around the tooth somewhat, or you’ll have a tooth that looks whiter in the middle and gray around the edges, giving a halo effect. In order to accomplish that, there needs to be some tooth preparation. Lumineers, however, are promoted as a “no-preparation” procedure.
Second, to adequately cover dark tetracycline stains, Lumineers aren’t thick enough. So you either have to have your teeth ending up a fainter color of gray, or otherwise they have to be made a pasty looking opaque white–not natural at all.
Lumineers is just a brand name of a type of porcelain veneers that is strong enough that they can make them maybe about 25-30% thinner than other porcelain veneers. Some of the Lumineers ads are deceiving in that they show a picture of teeth being ground to a stub, implying that’s what the dentist will do for other brands of porcelain veneers. That’s a gross exaggeration. Even regular porcelain veneers are wafer thin.
- Dr. Hall
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