Dr. Hall,
2 days ago, I had a porcelain veneer placed on one of my upper 2 front teeth because it was chipped. I had bonding on this tooth before, but that fell off. This new dentist said bonding was out of the question because 1/5 of the tooth was chipped, and she recommended a crown. But I told her that I would like to do a veneer as it is less invasive than a crown.

Just before the veneer was placed, I had a chance to look at it on my tooth. It looked nice. It was lighter than my other tooth–I picked a few shades whiter anticipating bleaching my teeth afterwards. The shape looked perfect, so I signed the consent.

Once it was glued on, I had no chance to view it. The dentist and the assistant told me it looked great.

Once in the car, I looked in the mirror, and was in shock. The length of the tooth is a millimeter over to the next tooth and it looks like it is now placed a little forward. It looks like she put too much glue and that overall, the tooth looks protruded. On the back side of the tooth (closer to the tip of the tooth), I can feel a gap between the placed veneer and the back of my original tooth. When I bit in my sandwich I can feel the length difference of my teeth.

I called the dentist today and explained the issues. The assistant said the gap in the back of the tooth may be fixed but nothing could be done regarding the length. She even said it’s probably because the tooth moved. I told her I noticed right after the procedure when I got back to my car.

I have the feeling that I may need a second opinion. I made an appointment with the dentist, but I’m afraid to go.
I don’t know what to do, where to start. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thank you so much in advance.
– Jennifer from Virginia

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Jennifer,
Unfortunately, I hear about this type of situation a lot.

Most dentists have an engineering mindset, and their appreciation of esthetics in a smile is very rudimentary. This is why they don’t take the time and trouble to learn proper techniques for doing esthetic procedures.

Let me tell you how I’m reading this situation. Admittedly, I’m making some assumptions, and I could be way off base as far as this individual dentist is concerned. But this will help you understand how many dentists think and also understand better how to get this done right.

First, the dentist says that bonding is out of the question. Why? And why so dogmatic about it? There’s no discussion of the pros and cons, just “out of the question.” It worked before, so it’s clearly not “out of the question.” With 1/5 of the tooth chipped, bonding would have been my first choice for repairing the tooth, and it would be the first choice of many cosmetic dentists. My guess is that she’s not that good at bonding. This is what dentists will do to deflect requests for procedures they don’t feel comfortable with.

So she recommends a crown. You perceived this as overkill (I would agree with you), so you asked her to do a porcelain veneer. Based on what happened to you as this procedure was completed, it seems to me that this dentist has limited or no experience with porcelain veneers. But your dentist, thinking that the artistic part is going to be done by the dental lab and not wanting to push you too hard, agrees to do the porcelain veneer, even though she doesn’t feel completely comfortable with that procedure either.

So the veneer is done and tried on. You said the shape, length, and thickness were fine when the veneer was tried on. You got a good look at it, which is appropriate. So far, so good. But then when the veneer was bonded on, this is where it gets odd. The instinct of the dentist would be to show you the final product. They had a mirror that they used before, why none now? That was always the last thing we did in my office whenever we did work on the front teeth–hand them a mirror so they can see the final product. Goodness, even my barber does that. But why didn’t your dentist? Because she’s embarrassed at how it turned out. They just told you it looked great. Ooooh, that part really annoys me, that they would try to tell you that.

This sounds like a case of getting the veneer positioned wrong when the bonding material was applied, and then when they got done curing it they saw that. This positioning of the restoration is something that is very different between veneers and crowns. It is very easy to seat a crown on a tooth–you just slip it on and it’s very easy to tell when it is fully seated and on correctly. With a veneer, the dentist doesn’t get that same feel for it being seated correctly and it is very easy to get the veneer seated in the wrong position.

It also bothers me that when you called with this rather serious issue (your smile has to look at least a little funny with one front tooth longer than the other) that they had the dental assistant answer your questions. And the dental assistant is not right. Of course something can be done if the veneer is too long. If it were otherwise okay, it could be trimmed. In your situation that wouldn’t be good enough–the veneer needs to be re-done. But trimming it would certainly help. And it’s ridiculous to attribute the problem to your tooth moving. Your tooth isn’t going to move like that regardless of how much time had elapsed since the veneer was bonded.

As I said, they probably just got the veneer seated wrong. That’s not a fatal mistake. That actually happened a once to me. The bigger problem to me is their reaction to it. They should have said something to you immediately. The correction, after the veneer is bonded, has to be to completely re-do the veneer. So if this had happened in my office, I would have trimmed and polished the veneer so it looked like the adjacent tooth, I would have told you what happened after showing you the result, and then made an appointment to re-do it.

Oh, and another point. If you’re going to bleach, the dentist should have bleached your teeth FIRST, then waited a couple of weeks for the bleached color to stabilize, then done the veneer. Your front teeth need to match exactly, and you can’t bleach teeth to match a certain color. The only way to get the teeth to match is to do the bleaching first. An expert cosmetic dentist would have told you that.

So, what to do from here?

First you need to get with a genuine cosmetic dentist. Go to our website, put in your city, and see what your options are. We have several near you in northern Virginia.

And of course your dentist should refund your money. It seems to me that she is embarrassed about this, and I believe she won’t put up much resistance to your request for a refund. If she does give you any trouble over that, you could file an ethical complaint with the dental society or the dental board. But my guess is that she will want to make this right for you. Be sure you get good documentation about how this looks–have the expert cosmetic dentist take photographs of the front and back of the tooth, because it should be fairly easy to show that the veneer isn’t seated fully. This is a clear error that any dentist should recognize.

Dr. Hall

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