Dental Bonding or Veneers?

[SunnyOne]

With age, some of my teeth are looking chipped, thin, discolored. Of course only those in the front.

Have any of you committed to bonding or veneers? Have you been happy with the results?

 

[Mark1]

Not sure of the nomenclature, but I suspect I had this done back in 2017. My relatively, new dentist told me that two front teeth were wearing down on the bottom and that at some point in the future I would need to address it. If I remember right he indicated that once I broke through into a "new" layer, the wear rate would pick up dramatically. I had it done a few months later.

I wouldn't say that I now look like "a kid with big teeth", but there are noticeably larger top-to-bottom. If I remember right he also indicated that the thickness would make them appear somewhat whiter(?). My bill shows "Resin Composite - 2 Surfaces, Anterior" twice for a total bill of $345.80.

 

[TrvlBug]

I badly chipped my front teeth about 10 years ago. I wanted to retain as much of the teeth as possible so I definitely ruled out caps even though it would be covered by insurance. I decided on bonding rather than veneers and REGRET it immensely. Bonding stains big time. My two front teeth are noticeably darker than the surrounding teeth. Bonding cannot be cleaned. I had decided on veneers then covid hit so decided to wait a while. Will do the veneers this year.

The other advantage to veneers is that my teeth can be 'straightened'. They currently overlap a bit.

 

[Peter]

My two upper front teeth were chipped back in the mid-90s. In 1998 I had veneers attached. They are still there and still look good. No problems at all.

 

[omni550]

I'm glad to hear that veneers have a long life.

I asked my dentist and he said veneers don't last long and suggested I get invisalign correction instead.

omni

 

[Dash man]

I had a front tooth bonded in the late seventies and it lasted a long time. I had veneers put on my two front teeth about fifteen years ago, and just replaced because one was cracked. Had them both done to match better. I’m very pleased with them.

 

[Born2BRetd]

My husband had veneers placed on his top front teeth. He's had problems with them falling off (may not be the veneers' fault and might be the dentist's skills) and needing to be reglued. He no longer can bite into apples without worrying about them falling off.

 

[mn54]

I am a retired dentist. i think the terminology is getting confused. bonding is just a method of attaching any material to a tooth. you can bond composite, porcelain, even amalgam to the tooth. a veneer is a way of covering the front and biting edge of a tooth without having to remove more tooth structure to place a full crown. the veneer can be made out of composite or porcelain. the composite veneers are less expensive and may pick up stain over the years but they also can be repaired if they chip. the porcelain veneers will usually not stain but cannot be repaired.

 

[Scuba]

My only comment re veneers is that some friends of ours did them and their new teeth looked great, but quite unnatural for people of their age. The teeth were so white and perfect. I guess it’s similar to seeing a 70 year old with zero wrinkles. They look much younger, but they obviously had a lot of work done to look so youthful.

 

[Dash man]

My only comment re veneers is that some friends of ours did them and their new teeth looked great, but quite unnatural for people of their age. The teeth were so white and perfect. I guess it’s similar to seeing a 70 year old with zero wrinkles. They look much younger, but they obviously had a lot of work done to look so youthful.

Yes, I’ve seen that too. My veneers look very natural and the color matches the surrounding teeth. No George Hamilton smile for me.

 

[Amethyst]

This is the only reason I didn't have veneers done 20 years ago - I'd seen too many women my age with those unnaturally white, too-big teeth. The cost of veneers was also enormous - about $8,000 as I recall, not convered by insurance.

Now I'm sorry I didn't spend the money. The bonding keeps wearing out; eventually I'll need crowns and will have that "old-people opaque front teeth" look.

I wouldn't say that I now look like "a kid with big teeth", .

 

[DayDreaming]

I got porcelain veneers on 6 of my upper front teeth because the enamel was wearing away for some reason. This was over 15 years ago. Over that time, I've had 2 veneers crack and partially fall off. For one of those I asked my dentist if he could just reattach the broken piece, and he did at no charge to me. It left a very fine crack line which only me and my dentist would ever see. The other one broke into several pieces and I had to get a new veneer made. But other than those incidents, no problems, they haven't stained at all, and I don't have to worry about biting into apples or anything.

If you're worried about the veneers looking too white or unnatural, my dentist let me choose exactly what shade of white to make the veneers. In hindsight I should have gone a little bit less white, but I'm still happy with them.

 

[FrankiesGirl]

I'm still in my 40s, but badly chipped one of my front upper teeth, enamel wear and the all have fillings and slight crookedness/sizing issues (related to childhood overlap and genetics) and have had issues with them in general most of my life and asked my dentist recently about veneers because I'm unhappy with the look and also concerned about continued chipping (both front teeth are wearing thin at the bottom and I have had them rebonded at least 2 times in the last few years).


He said he didn't recommend veneers at all and advised crowns for all four front upper teeth, and said it would be best to do some basic whitening on the existing upper/lower front areas before the crowns so he could then put in matching lighter and still natural looking crowns.



I don't have any crowns at all, and am kind of freaked out at the idea of basically grinding most of the 4 teeth away to install them (if I'm understanding crowns properly). BUT I do really love my dentist and he's not done any poor or unnecessary work in the decades I've seen him (and I've seen many bad dentists prior to him).



Do crowns for the FRONT teeth make sense over veneers?

 

[zinger1457]

Do crowns for the FRONT teeth make sense over veneers?

I went the crown route about 10 years ago and very pleased with the results. With crowns you can also help reshape crooked teeth, don't think you can do that with veneers. Can also select almost any shade of white that you want so you don't get that fake bright white look but probably can do the same with veneers nowadays. I did it in two stages, top than bottom, a good dentist can do the grinding fairly quickly and painless. My dentist used a temporary one piece crown, made to look like individual teeth, while the final ones were being made, took about a week as I recall.