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Dr. Hall,
At the bottom of your Lumineers section on your website, you have a photograph of Dr. Arnold’s patient who just had her braces taken off and wanted her teeth to look bigger.
Do you think this beautiful result was achieved because she had tiny teeth to begin with? Was that what enabled her to get away with a no prep and a non bulky result? Thereby making this less achievable to a patient with average-sized teeth. Realizing that he used his own ceramist to better control the result as well.
Thank you for your reply.
Wendy from California
.
Wendy,
You are referring to a case done with another brand of ultra-thin veneers, not with Lumineers, that is posted at the bottom of our Lumineers page. I have posted the full-smile photographs below.
Alexandra’s smile, before
Alexandra, after no-preparation porcelain veneers
Yes, you are correct that a factor in the success of this case was that the teeth were a little on the small side to begin with. There has to be some care in case selection if the dentist is going to use a no-preparation technique. Not every porcelain veneer case is going to be a candidate for no-preparation veneers. Even with the veneers as thin as 0.3 mm, that is adding to the thickness of the teeth, and a little bit will be added to their length. If you look at the “after” photograph of Dr. Arnold’s case, you will see that the incisal edges of the upper front teeth are maybe a millimeter closer to her lower lip, so he lengthened those teeth about a millimeter.
Also, the teeth were straight. If a tooth is crooked, there will be a portion that will be sticking out, and that will have to be trimmed back in order to get a beautiful result.
And then Dr. Arnold, since he wasn’t using the Lumineers brand, was free to use his own master ceramist, Michael Morris, who is also very talented. I will repeat here what I have often said about the Lumineers brand. The company that makes Lumineers restricts their use to their own dental laboratory, which is why I don’t recommend Lumineers. I have yet to see a Lumineers case that has resulted in what I would call a beautiful smile. But this result by Dr. Arnold, as well as other cases I have seen, are truly beautiful. I have met Alexandra (this patient) in person, and even as a trained, accredited cosmetic dentist, I could not tell that she had anything but her own natural teeth showing in her smile.
Dr. Hall
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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.