Dental veneers are fragile, tooth-coloured shells bonded to the front of teeth to enhance their aesthetics. They’re usually permanently glued to your teeth and made of porcelain or resin composite materials.
Chipped, damaged, discoloured, or smaller-than-average teeth are just a few cosmetic issues that can be treated with veneers in Singapore.
In the event of a cracked or damaged tooth, some people may only need one veneer, while many have six to eight veneers to achieve a uniform, symmetrical smile. Veneers are most frequently used on the upper eight front teeth.
What are the many veneer types?
The most popular materials for dental veneers are porcelain or composite resin, which require extensive preparation. However, there are also “no-prep” veneers, which are put on using a different method.
Ordinarily, grinding down the tooth structure and occasionally removing some teeth—even past the enamel—is required to apply traditional dental veneers. This enables proper implantation but is also an irreversible process that can be uncomfortable and frequently needs a local anaesthetic.
The number of teeth implicated and your dental issues determine whether you need to have teeth reduced. When multiple teeth are involved, a dentist may request a wax model to demonstrate the appearance of the veneers.
However, a minimum amount of tooth preparation or modification may be necessary with no-prep veneers.
veneers of porcelain
Some dentists will start by filing down your teeth before taking an impression of them to use as a mould. After that, they will send the mould to a lab to create the porcelain veneer.
When the veneer is prepared, your dentist can apply it to the prepared tooth and secure it with cement. While waiting for the permanent veneers to return from the lab, temporary veneers can be used.
Other dentists may use CAD/CAM technology to create the veneer using a computer. Finally, your dentist can make the veneer itself right there in practice.
Resilient composite veneers
Your dentist will etch the surface of your tooth if you decide to have composite resin veneers before coating it with a thin layer of the composite material.
To obtain the desired aesthetic, further composite layers could be required. After that, your dentist will use a special light to cure, or harden, the composite veneer.
Veneers that do not require preparation.
A few examples of these are the porcelain veneer alternatives Lumineers and Vivaneers. As a result, they apply more quickly and with less disruption.
No-prep veneers modify the enamel of the tooth, not the layers of the tooth underneath. Therefore, no-prep veneers frequently don’t require temporary veneers or local anaesthetics.