Porcelain veneers offer a solution for many smile problems, including tooth color, shape, length, and alignment. Veneers can actually strengthen the teeth. Research shows that veneers can reinforce a fractured, chipped, or worn-down tooth.
Veneers are the best way to get the ‘WOW” smile.
Obtaining natural results is the biggest concern for patients. Porcelain has come such a long way, and today’s materials can look so real. Signs of less-than-perfect veneers include stains at the edges of the veneers, dark triangles between the teeth, a thick or bulky appearance, and an opaque look.
It’s recommended that you do your research when selecting a dentist to do your veneers. Very few dentists in the country have the advanced training and exceptional ceramist to obtain a natural looking veneer. Dr. Jason Olitsky is one of twenty instructors at the prestigious Hornbrook Group, and teaches smile enhancements procedures to other dentists from around the country.
The procedure takes two or three visits. The first visit consists of impressions and photographs. The second visit includes numbing, reshaping, and new temporaries to test drive your new smile. The third visit is to try in and permanently bond your new veneers.
Case fees can range anywhere from $4,000 to $40,000 depending on how many teeth are involved and how complex the case is.
Invisalign
Many patients in their late twenties and early thirties come in complaining that they once had perfectly straight teeth, and now they don’t. Today there is a discreet way to straighten teeth without the traditional metal braces and wires.
Invisalign can correct crooked or misaligned teeth with a series of clear plastic removable appliances that look like bleaching trays. Impressions are taken of your teeth to create 18 to 30 sets of aligning trays that incrementally move your teeth into the desired position. Each set is worn for about two weeks and removed only for eating and hygiene, before switching into the next set.
Cases can take anywhere from 6 to 18 months. Some complex cases may not respond as well and may need traditional braces.
Not every patient is willing to undergo orthodontics, so porcelain veneers may be another option, especially if teeth are discolored or malformed.
Often, Invisalign is used in conjunction with porcelain veneers to move the teeth into correct positions before putting veneers on. Another option is wearing Invisalign on the bottom teeth and having porcelain veneers done on the top teeth.
To keep teeth straight, we recommend wearing a retainer for life. If you do not, chances are great that relapsing will occur. Your last set of Invisalign trays can serve as your retainer for some time and a traditional retainer can be made when necessary.
Case fees range from $3,500 to $6,500 depending on how long you’ll be wearing the trays and how much movement is needed.
Teeth Whitening
According to AACD, whitening treatments have increased by more than 300 percent over the past five years. With images of celebrities with gleaming smiles to advertisements for at-home bleaching kits at every turn, the most desirable level of whiteness keeps getting brighter. But the fact is, the level that you can achieve may be limited by both genetics and lifestyle factors that play a major role in the color of your teeth.
Most common causes for staining include food and beverages (coffee, tea, cola, red wine, dark berries, soy sauce), fluoride (white spots), smoking, hereditary (some people just have darker teeth of brighter teeth), antibiotics (tetracycline taken as a child), and trauma (may cause a dark tooth).
For optimal results, professional whitening treatments penetrate deeper to whiten the teeth and the results last longer than those seen over- the- counter treatments. We recommend ZOOM! one hour teeth whitening to jump start your whitening, followed up with custom take home trays to maintain your new white smile. Trays can be used to touch up once a month.
Take home trays work just as well as ZOOM! one hour whitening, but compliance is an issue. ZOOM! is the equivalent of wearing trays for 10-14 days, which most people have a hard time doing. Sensitivity with ZOOM! can last about 24 hours, whereas with the trays it can last longer because you are bleaching for many days in a row. We can help you with your decision.
Prices of whitening range from $350 to $650 depending on which method is used. It’s an easy, conservative place to start. For those teeth that don’t whiten well, veneers will help.
Gum Contouring
You can’t underestimate the role the gums play in the overall appearance of the mouth. You can make major improvements to a gummy smile. Excess gum tissue can make teeth appear shorter than they really are, and proportion can be restored with a gum lift, or gingivectomy. Either a laser or traditional surgery can be used, (or a combination of both), but this can depend on your individual condition.
For those with gum discrepancies, like different gum heights from tooth to tooth, this can sometimes be done simply with a laser to expose more tooth. This is an easy procedure that will have your smile looking better in minutes. Healing time is very minimal, perhaps a day or two.
But if removing excess gum exposes part of the root surface, this will usually have to be covered with a porcelain veneer or bonding.
Extreme cases, such as when gum and bone need to be removed, require a more extensive procedure. We used to have to do a surgery where the gum is cut and a flap is created before a few millimeters of bone are removed and the gum is sutured up. Today we can do this same procedure with a special ER:YAG laser, eliminating six weeks of healing time and much of the post operative pain. This requires a few days of healing time.
The ER:YAG is a large investment for the office, but eliminates a lot of the compromises we used to have to live with in a smile.
Case fees for a gum lift range from $500 to $3,000 depending on how many teeth and how complex.
A little fine-tuning can go a long way. To fix chips, gaps, and other minor smile imperfections, bonding and contouring is a conservative treatment choice.
This one-appointment procedure involves bonding (roughening the tooth’s surface and applying a tooth colored filling material to the teeth that is hardened with a special light) and contouring, which can fine-tune a smile by reshaping the teeth to create an illusion of better alignment and more uniform length. Bonding and contouring is typically used together to add and take away very minor areas of the teeth.
Bonding can be used for veneers, but there are limitations, especially with the esthetic outcome and durability.
Anesthesia is not often needed for this visit and the results are instant.
Bonding is also used for replacing silver fillings on back teeth, eliminating the black colored areas in the back of your mouth seen when talking and laughing.
Most patients whiten their teeth first, then add bonding to match their new brighter smile. This is a great way to conservatively reverse the signs of aging for those with a limited budget.
Case fees can range from $1,000 to $6,500 depending on the number of teeth being enhanced.
