I am looking for an excellent cosmetic dentist. I am considering crowns for my front teeth. Since I grind my teeth, I don’t think porcelain veneers are a good option. I have seen some people with crowns however that appear grey at the gumline. I don’t want that at all. How do you feel about Snap-on Smile?
- Gerard from Ohio
Gerard,
Snap-on-Smile will not give you a beautiful smile. It may give an acceptable smile, but your teeth will be a little bulky, and you won’t have that natural translucency of real teeth, plus some other drawbacks. The Snap-on Smile is a low-cost option for a smile makeover. You need to have low expectations for the Snap-on Smile or you’ll be disappointed.
You do have to be really careful if you grind your teeth. You don’t need to rule out porcelain veneers, as long as you are going to an excellent cosmetic dentist who has a lot of experience with smile makeovers. The dentist may have to make them so that they stay out of the way of your grinding patterns. That can be done. And you may need to wear a night guard to protect the veneers at night. We have often worked with grinders and clenchers and they have a hard time believing that wearing this protection at night helps, because they say things always break during the day. But the stress and microcracks that are created at night weaken the teeth and the porcelain, and so the night guard can be excellent protection. But again, it depends on the patient, and each case needs to be handled individually. And you really need an excellent cosmetic dentist with a great deal of experience.
As far as porcelain crowns, that would also be an option for you. The dark line that is associated with crowns is only associated with porcelain fused to metal crowns. An expert cosmetic dentist with many years of experience, again, will be able to place these in such a way as to keep them from breaking. One disadvantage of crowns if you are a grinder or a clencher is that the front teeth are weakened at the neck of the tooth, and, again depending on your grinding patterns, it may make it so that the tooth is more susceptible to breaking off entirely.
You want a dentist with expertise in cosmetic dentistry and in occlusion, and a dentist who is older, say in his late 40s at least, because they will have more long-term experience in doing total smile makeovers. A dentist who has done smile makeovers but not over that long a time period hasn’t yet seen how these makeovers in patients who grind their teeth hold up over time.
This blog sponsored by Colorado Springs TMJ dentist Dr. Joseph Rota.