Porcelain Veneers

Porcelain Veneers

A veneer is an artistic thin porcelain jacket that is custom made to go over your tooth seamlessly. Veneers are placed on the incisor (front) or bicuspid (side) teeth to cover imperfections, crooked teeth, esthetically change a tooth’s appearance, or protect the tooth structure underneath. Veneers are placed on the teeth you see when you smile.

Why Would I Need Veneers?

Veneers are a very versatile way to cure many problem areas. For example, veneers are a more durable way to hide discolorations in front teeth, instead of fillings and are much less invasive than crowns. Veneers are resistant to staining caused by coffee, tea, wine, or cigarettes, unlike composite fillings. With veneers we can fix one single tooth due to a chip or reconstruct a whole smile. People who have diastema, large spaces in between teeth, can use veneers to hide this as well. Veneers can be manipulated any way we decide, so the dream smile in your head can easily become a reality. Minimal anesthesia is used with veneers compared to other procedures and the results are unmatched by anything else.

Another use for veneers is a process called instant orthodontics. This is used on someone who is unhappy with the way his or her teeth are aligned, and does not want to wear braces. Instead of going through orthodontics, we can fix this with veneers in as little as two – three visits. This gives the illusion of perfectly straight teeth, with absolutely no orthodontics used!

Are You A Veneer Candidate?

Those with cracked, chipped, slightly misaligned, discolored, or overcrowded teeth are candidates for veneer treatment. However, veneer recipients need to have good dental health to solidify the result of the veneers. Porcelain veneer patients should have healthy teeth and gums. Those who have pre-existing dental conditions such as gingivitis, gum disease, or serious tooth decay may need to take care of these issues first, and then have veneers.

Also, those with severely misaligned teeth or major tooth damage may require more extensive dental treatments. More serious dental needs must be taken care of first, to protect the integrity of the veneers. Placing a veneer on a decaying tooth, or tooth surrounded by infected or inflamed gum tissue is comparable to building a house on a failing foundation. Your bite, the way your teeth come together, is also a serious consideration when getting veneers.

How Many Visits, Start to Finish, Do I Need?

This procedure usually takes three to four visits. The first visit being the consultation which includes finding out information about your smile makeover goals, if you are a veneer candidate, why they would be a good fit for you, how many teeth we will be working on, and the shape and color of the teeth we will be fabricating for you. We can make the veneers in any shape and shade you desire, and the Long Island porcelain veneers doctors at Koeppel Dental Group – A Dental365 Company will help guide you. Whether it is a more natural look to cover up an embarrassing space or a pearly white smile for a movie star look. Color matching with veneers is unmatched by any other product.

After the cosmetic consultation, the Suffolk County porcelain veneers doctors of Koeppel Dental Group – A Dental365 Company will take impressions for a diagnostic wax up. Not all dentists use this crucial tool when doing veneers, but due to our doctors’ extreme attention to detail and training, every patient at our office receives one. This allows us to take records and measurements of your teeth by using impressions and making models. This allows Dr. Koeppel, director of Koeppel Dental Group – A Dental365 Company , to work with his master ceramist (laboratory) and shape the teeth to his and your exact specifications. Literally giving you complete power and choice, with guidance from Dr. Koeppel, over how your veneers are fabricated. Stony Brook Porcelain Veneer expert, Dr. Koeppel’s artistic ability will then choose what kind of veneers will work best for your case, utilizing cutting edge technology. There is no one size fits all with veneers or cosmetic dentistry. Each patient is unique and treated as such.

Davinci ®, Empress ®, Empress 2 ®, Feldspathic ®, Authentic ®, Procera ®, Lumineers ®, and Ivoclar Emax ® are a few of the more known names we use.

The wax up is also used to create your temporary veneers (a blueprint for the final result). Crafted from exact replicas of the wax up, your temporary veneers allow you to test drive your smile. So, while waiting for your veneers to be done, your smile will be improved dramatically with Dr. Koeppel’s temporary veneer placement. This test drive will allow you to see what your final smile will look like to be sure you will be happy with the results.

Long Island porcelain veneer specialist, Dr. Koeppel, director of Koeppel Dental Group – A Dental365 Company, is very familiar with the golden rules of proportion, imperative for veneer fabrication, which he studied when he trained at the LVI and PAC-Live Institutes. This gives you an advantage, when creating your dream smile, because he knows how big each tooth should be, in proportion to the others. Sounds like common sense, but most are unaware if this crucial technique.

At your next visit we will be prepping the teeth to prepare them for the placement of the veneers. This entails slight removal of tooth structure from the front surface of the teeth. This lost thickness is replaced by the temporaries and ultimately permanently replaced by the porcelain. Then, an impression is taken with the highest quality material to capture all the anatomy of the teeth to achieve the best fitting veneer possible. We then send these impressions to our master ceramist. It usually takes about two to four weeks to perfectly shape and finish the veneers. During this time, you will wear your temporary veneers and “test drive” them. These are needed to maintain gum position and reduce sensitivity during the interim phase. You will then, if necessary, have a revisit with Dr. Koeppel personally to discuss how you like the temporaries and any slight adjustments you would prefer in the result. This “test driving” of the temporaries is Dr. Koeppel’s protocol to insure your extreme happiness with the final esthetic results.

Your final visit will be to try on and bond the veneers on to your teeth. The veneers will be placed on temporarily for you to approve of the esthetics. If you like the shape but the shade is not exactly ideal, we can manipulate that for you with tinted cement. However, once the veneers are permanently cemented, we cannot change the color. Once you and Suffolk County porcelain veneer doctor, Dr. Koeppel approve we will treat each veneer separately with a bonding agent to make sure they adhere to the teeth flawlessly. Cement is then placed on each veneer and cured on to the tooth with a high beam light. You can now drive that gorgeous smile of your dreams.