Dental veneers, thin layers of porcelain bonded to chipped, stained or slightly crooked teeth, are an effective and affordable way to transform your smile. Their color, translucence and shape blend so well with the rest of your teeth that it's often difficult to tell them apart.
But traditional veneers have one drawback: although they're less than a millimeter in width, they can still appear bulky on unprepared teeth. To help them look more natural, we often have to remove some of the enamel layer from the tooth surface. Enamel doesn't grow back, so this alteration is permanent and the prepared teeth will require a restoration from then on.
But you may be able to avoid this—or at least keep the alteration to a minimum—with no-prep or minimal-prep veneers, two new exciting choices in cosmetic dentistry. About the width of a contact lens, we can bond these much thinner veneers to teeth with virtually no preparation at all or, in the case of a minimal-prep veneer, needing only an abrasive tool to reshape and remove only a tiny bit of the enamel.
These ultra thin veneers are best for teeth with healthy enamel, and can be placed in as few as two appointments. And besides being less invasive, the procedure is reversible—we can remove them and you can return to your original look without any follow-up restoration. One caveat, though: because of the strong bonding process used, it's not always easy to remove them.
Although their thinness makes it possible to avoid or minimize alterations, there are some dental situations like oversized teeth that may still require extensive tooth preparation. With some poor bites (malocclusions) orthodontic treatment to straighten the teeth may also be needed first.
All in all, though, no-prep or minimal-prep veneers could help you avoid the permanent tooth alteration that usually accompanies their thicker cousins. What's more, you'll have the beautiful, transformed smile that veneers can achieve.
If you would like more information on minimal or no-prep veneers, please contact us or schedule an appointment for a consultation. You can also learn more about this topic by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “No-Prep Porcelain Veneers.”