What are Porcelain Veneers?
Porcelain veneers are thin facings of porcelain that can be cemented to the front surface of teeth to change their shape, colour, size and position.
Unlike a crown they do not cover the whole of the tooth and so require less drilling to sound tooth tissue. Porcelain veneers are very commonly used in techniques such as "smile design" where all of the visible teeth are fitted with veneers to give a balanced, harmonious, white tooth smile that extends to the corners of the mouth.
Like crowns, veneers give an excellent long term stable result for colour and shape but are more prone to chipping at the edges. As with crowns, veneers require adjustment to the underlying teeth that it is permanent. Generally when a tooth has been adjusted to have a veneer fitted it will always need to be restored with a veneer. That said the adjustment required is much less than for a crown so the risks of the tooth dieing off in the long run are very much reduced.
Advantages
- Complete control of appearance of tooth
- Very stable long term aesthetics
- Highly predictable result
- Minimum of two visits
- Easy to clean and maintain
Disadvantages
- Preparation of underlying tooth
- Higher cost due to laboratory fees
- Risk of chipping and debonding
- Replacement costs high each time
- Unable to repair porcelain in mouth
How Is A Veneer Case Prepared?
The following sequence shows the stages involved in producing a beautiful smile using four ceramic veneers.
Download a PDF of this page by clicking here.
(Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader - download it for free by clicking here)