Lumineers Cracked

Question:

I have Lumineers on my front eight teeth and the color is not white enough for me as I have had them on for four months now. I also have a stain on one of them and another one just cracked off and all I was eating was a soft oatmeal raisin cookie. I am not impressed as to how much I have spent and the quality of what I expected has not be exactly met. Can I have them replaced at their cost? Is this asking too much? I also think that they are off by millimeters to my left on my front two teeth. Help as I feel frustrated. Yes, my smile is a lot better than before as I has too many little white spots on many of my teeth.

—Christie from Arizona

Dear Christie,

The problems with Lumineers are starting to roll in—I'm seeing it in my e-mails.

I think you should be able to get the one replaced that cracked off, and get them to remove the stain on the other one, but I think it will be a tough sell to get them to replace all of them.

And I'm not sure you'd want the same dentist that did this job to re-do them. Why would he or she do any better the second time? Your dentist hasn't all of a sudden become an artist now.

A plain dentist is no place to go if you want a beautiful smile. There is a big difference between an ordinary dentist (which is what your dentist sounds like) who is trained as a technician to fix things that are broken, and an artistic, creative cosmetic dentist. A big difference. My suggestion would be to let these issues go—the color, the shaping—and not let this dentist experiment any more with your teeth. Then save up your money and get a beautiful smile from one of the great cosmetic dentists on our list in the Phoenix-Scottsdale metropolitan area.

—Dr. Hall

Microabrasion is another treatment used for white spots on teeth.

Click here for referral to an expert cosmetic dentist.