Dear Dr. Hall,
I have few questions and I hope that I will get answers to them as soon as practicable. I really have healthly, white and nice looking teeth but last week i hurt my front upper tooth with glass (club was crowded and somebody push me). Breakage is really small, i don’t think it’s more than 2mm wide and 1mm long. breakage is virtually impossible to detect by someone else but i can see it and that bothers me. I consider porcelain veneer and i have few questions about veneer.
1.How natural veneer can be? I don’t want that veneer looks unnatural, is it possible that veneer have the exact shape like my natural tooth? 2. Color of the veneer can be perfectly like my other teeth? I don’t want and I don’t need any smile makeover I just wanna close that fracture. At the end, do i really need veneer for that small gap? (your opinion) I hope you wiil respond to this mail, Thank you in advance!
– Luka from Croatia
Luka,
A porcelain veneer, if done by an expert cosmetic dentist, looks very natural. But if done by your average family dentist it can look very fake. In your case, where your chip isn’t too noticeable, you could end up looking worse than if you had done nothing.
If you have a small chip in a front tooth, the best way to repair that is with composite bonding. The dentist just roughens the surface near where you tooth chipped, and applies a composite material that is bonded to the tooth. It can last a long time–years. If the repair is small, it doesn’t take a lot of artistic talent to get it to look good. Larger repairs require some artistic ability to get them to blend in with the tooth and look natural.
I hope this is helpful.
Dr. Hall
About David A. Hall
Dr. David A. Hall was one of the first 40 accredited cosmetic dentists in the world. He practiced cosmetic dentistry in Iowa, and in 1990 earned his accreditation with the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. He is now president of Infinity Dental Web, a company in Mesa, Arizona that does advanced internet marketing for dentists.
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