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I have a space between my 2 front teeth, however one of my front teeth is a crown and the other front tooth is part of a bridge. Can the gap between my front teeth be closed with Lumineers or any other procedure or would I have to get a new bridge and crown, possibly all in one structure to close the gap?
– Laura from Nevada
Laura,
Your question prompts me to ask a question of my own: Why did the dentist who made the crown and/or the bridge leave a gap between your front teeth? The easy way to fix this would have been to make them correctly in the first place.
At this point, yes, you pretty much need to have probably both of them re-made—depending on how big the gap is. Both front teeth need to be the same size—you don’t want to close the gap from just one side by making one side larger.
A Micro-Etcher
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But there is a procedure you might want to try before doing that. There are ways to bond composite to porcelain, and you could start with trying that—treating this as a dental bonding case. If the dentist has what is called a micro-etcher, which is a small sand-blasting handpiece, he or she could micro-etch the porcelain surfaces next to the gap. This would be followed by etching with a hydrofluoric acid gel and then priming the surface with a silane coupling agent. A bonding resin would then be applied followed by composite bonding material to match the shade of the crown and the bridge. The composite would be shaped and polished. In theory, this should work. However, my experience with bonding to porcelain was that after a few months, we would see staining along the margin between the composite and the porcelain. But it could be worth a try to try to avoid the expense of a complete re-do of your front teeth.
I would think it goes without saying that you need an expert cosmetic dentist to do this, such as we recommend on this website.
The company that makes Lumineers, a few years ago, tried to promote the idea of bonding Lumineers over the top of porcelain crowns, but I strongly discourage that. You would get the same risk of staining at the margins, and would spend the same amount of money as you would spend just re-doing the case completely. Click the link to read more about the problems with that approach.
– 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.