Smile Design Miami

Veneers are basically an aesthetic procedure, although they are also functional, since they allow you to correct your bite and chew better. This means that porcelain veneers are used to cover what is considered unaesthetic in the teeth. However, they should not be used to correct or mask dental problems that are not merely cosmetic. That is, using porcelain veneers is convenient to have healthy teeth. If there are cavities or other problems of infection or accumulation of tartar and plaque both in the teeth and in the gums, they must be corrected before placing porcelain veneers on the teeth.

Patients who have good oral hygiene habits will not only have a better smile beforehand but will also be better candidates for a smile design. On the other hand, poor oral hygiene habits cause conditions in the teeth and gums that can prevent a smile design from being possible.

In order to use porcelain veneers, one of the basic conditions is to have good tooth enamel. This may sound paradoxical since porcelain dental veneers are precisely a resource to compensate for tooth enamel problems. However, the truth is that veneers are also attached to the enamel, and in certain conditions, it is not convenient to fit them.

There are people who do not have enough enamel on their teeth, and there are even people who do not have tooth enamel at all (this is called dental hypoplasia or the natural absence of enamel). When these things happen, there is nowhere to hold the veneers, and the person, assisted by their dentist, must resort to other types of aesthetic treatments to achieve a smile design.

There are substances that tend to damage natural teeth, and this is also true for artificial teeth and porcelain and other types of veneers. Nicotine and alcohol are known to be two of the substances that most destroy teeth in terms of staining and wear. It must be said that this same effect has on porcelain veneers. If you smoke or consume alcohol regularly, before getting porcelain veneers you better consider giving up both habits, or you will be throwing money into a bottomless pit.

While it is true that nicotine, alcohol and other substances (such as strong food dyes or foods with a lot of fat or sugar) have less unsightly effect on porcelain veneers than on resin or composite veneers, that does not mean that they do not affect them in any way.

From childhood we all tend to learn that natural teeth break when the denture is misused, that is, when unnecessary bites are made to improper or too hard materials. The same thing happens with veneers. If veneers are to be used or are being considered, teeth should not be used as “tools” to open wrappers or packages, straighten metals, split plastics, etc.

Even other uses of teeth that, without having to do with “tools”, are just as harmful are considered improper. We refer to onychophagia (biting your nails), bruxism (clenching or grinding one jaw with the other), clashing your teeth out of anxiety or anger, etc. All those habits must be abandoned because they can crack the porcelain veneers.

It is almost always said that dental veneers are suitable for all ages. This is true, but a clarification needs to be made. In the case of children under the age of 7, who still have the so-called “baby teeth” (deciduous dentition), they are not considered good candidates for porcelain veneers.

If trauma such as accidental tooth fractures occur at that age, composite or resin veneers are normally used to correct them rather than porcelain veneers. In this way, it is hoped that the problem will correct itself when the child’s permanent dentition or second dentition is born, the first phase of which occurs naturally between the ages of 7 and 11.