Captivate Dental Tips: How can I improve my smile with porcelain veneers and crowns?
If you’re unhappy with the current appearance of your smile, you might be exploring ways to enhance your smile and restore your teeth.
At Captivate Dental, we offer two great options in the form of our porcelain veneers and crowns.
Both alternatives are popular, relatively simple, and both offer you great results.
Although both treatments improve the look of your smile and it’s individual teeth, some critical differences between them are important to know before deciding which treatment is right for you.
What are Veneers and Crowns?
Both veneers and crowns are forms of cosmetic treatment and dental restoration, with veneers tending more towards cosmetic improvement and crowns tending more towards functional improvement.
However, both procedures can be a key part of upgrading your smile.
Both veneers and crowns are coverings of existing teeth, with the differences including what teeth they are placed on, how much natural tooth must be removed during treatment, how much of the tooth surface is covered, and how thick the covering material is.
A porcelain veneer is a wafer-thin slice of porcelain that is bonded to the front of teeth.
The porcelain is carefully coloured to match (or improve!) the colour of your natural teeth.
Veneers are sturdy; however hard, sudden, or repeated impact can crack them or knock them off teeth.
Crowns are much thicker, cover entire teeth, and are manufactured from metal, porcelain, or a combination of the two.
A crown is a sturdier appliance and is much more resistant to cracking than veneers are.
Differences in treatment
Because they are a surface treatment applied only to the front of teeth, veneers are a more conservative treatment than crowns.
To place a veneer, your dentist usually removes a thin layer of tooth enamel from the front of the tooth and doesn’t usually need to alter the core or the back of the tooth.
This means that far less of a tooth needs to be removed to place a veneer.
Crowns, on the other hand, require up to 75% of the visible tooth to be removed before they can be placed on your teeth.
This means up to four times as much tooth reduction is needed for crown placement.
When crowns are a good choice
Crowns are a good choice if there are deep or structural issues with a tooth. Crowns help keep teeth intact and protect them from further damage that might require extraction.
Another situation in which crowns are a better choice than veneers is if grinding has damaged a tooth’s edge.
Veneers don’t ‘wrap around’ tooth edges, so teeth whose appearances have bee damaged by grinding require crowns.
Teeth that have been ground down normally need crowns to upgrade their appearance.
Crowns are often excellent solutions for damaged teeth and can deliver significant changes in the shape and colour of existing teeth.
There are several reasons a dental crown might be made for a tooth. Dentists often use them to:
- Cover a damaged or missing filling
- Protect a decayed tooth
- Hold a dental bridge in place
- “Cap” a dental implant to create a functioning tooth
- Restore a broken, ground down, or incomplete tooth
When veneers are good choices
Veneers are perfect for minor aesthetic issues, in teeth at the front of the mouth.
Here are some cases in which veneers work well:
- Cracks and chips can be covered with veneers, preventing further damage to your teeth, leaving you with crack-free teeth and a stunning smile.
- Large gaps between teeth. Using porcelain veneers, the size of these gaps can be reduced or eliminated.
- Misaligned (or crooked teeth) can be treated with porcelain veneers instead of braces.
- Stains. Porcelain veneers cover the teeth in white and act as a barrier, making teeth more resistant to staining.
Consider insurance
While crowns and veneers can have similar effects on your smile, veneers are generally treated as an aesthetic treatment and are far less likely to be covered by dental insurance.
‘Care and feeding’ of your crowns and veneers
Crowns and veneers should last a decade or more. They are reasonably stain-resistant, but they can become discoloured.
Whitening and bleaching don’t work on these restorations, so it’s essential to maintain oral hygiene and good eating habits as well as damage from biting on hard substances/foods or using your teeth as tools.
Porcelain Veneers at Captivate Dental
Crowns at Captivate Dental
Complete Dental Care at Captivate Dental!
Captivate Dental’s office is located in Cheltenham near Brighton (near Cheltenham Station and Kingston City Hall).
We provide the highest quality care and offer our patients the chance to make informed choices.
Our competent, compassionate staff gives value through top-notch diagnostic skills and efficient use of the best quality materials.
Captivate Dental has a wide variety of preventative and cosmetic dental treatment for kids, seniors, and everyone between!
We are open Monday to Friday from 8:30AM to 5:30PM.
Cheltenham dentist also serves the local communities in Bentleigh, Highett, Hampton East, Cheltenham and Brighton East.
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No Gap Initial Examination, Clean, Fluoride treatment and 2x X-rays for all Private Health Insurance Dental coverage.
Call us on (03) 9553 1249. Visit us on the web, or use our convenient online booking page.
We re located at 36 Chesterville Road in Cheltenham.