Misaligned bites need braces or Invisalign®, cavities need fillings, and dingy teeth need a good dental cleaning and professional teeth whitening treatment, but what do you do about oddly shaped teeth or teeth that seem too small for your mouth?
That’s where dental veneers come in.
Veneers are the most versatile dental treatment, and they’re surprisingly underrated. At Dr. Aaronson & Associates, we encourage our patients throughout Midtown East, New York, New York, to consider veneers to correct a wide range of flaws. Here are some of the problems veneers can solve.
1. Cracked teeth
Chewing ice and hard foods, bruxism (teeth grinding), and blows to your mouth can cause cracks in your teeth. Even a quick change in temperature — eating super hot food then chugging ice water — can crack your teeth.
Tooth cracks can be very fine craze lines in the enamel, fractured cusps around a dental filling, or vertical cracks that go all the way to your gum line or even below to the root. Without treatment, these cracks allow bacteria to enter your tooth and develop an infection that can easily spread to your gums and bones.
Veneers are tooth-colored porcelain shells that not only cover the tooth and prevent further damage, they also restore the smooth look of your tooth.
2. Chipped teeth
Chipped teeth, like cracked teeth, present a potential problem with infection. Chips are much more noticeable than mere cracks, which may make you feel self-conscious.
Chipped teeth also have jagged edges that can cut the soft tissues in your mouth, so covering them with a dental veneer can fix your tooth and your smile.
3. Misshapen teeth
Some people are born with oddly shaped teeth. Although any tooth can be misshapen, the most common scenario is a mouth full of normal teeth, interrupted by one or two peg-shaped teeth — typically the incisors.
Veneers wrap around those irregular shapes and create a uniform look for all your teeth.
4. Tiny teeth
Often, misshapen teeth are also extra small and make you look like you have a baby tooth that never fell out. In this case, veneers elongate and widen your existing tooth, so it matches your other teeth in both size and shape.
5. Gaps
That gap between your two front teeth may help you slurp soup and whistle loudly, but it’s also an ideal hangout for decay-causing bacteria. That’s why we recommend veneers to close the gap, improve your smile, and give you a fighting chance against gum disease and tooth decay.
6. Weak teeth
When they’re healthy, your teeth are strong and durable, but over time, age, diet, and lifestyle factors can weaken them, such as:
- Sugary and acidic foods
- Soft drinks
- Bruxism
- Large fillings
- Chronic dry mouth
Weak teeth tend to crack and fracture easily, so you may need veneers to add an extra layer of strength and protection.
7. Severely discolored teeth
For most stubborn stains caused by foods and beverages like coffee, tea, wine, tobacco, berries, and beets, we recommend our professional Zoom teeth whitening treatment. But for stains that come from the inside out, you need a next-level approach.
Teeth with worn-down enamel caused by bruxism or age shows the brownish yellow dentin below. Tooth trauma and some medications, such as tetracycline, can also cause discoloration. In these cases, veneers restore your white teeth by covering the flaws below.
8. Crooked teeth
For malocclusions and severely crooked teeth, nothing beats orthodontic treatment. And we offer Invisalign to get your smile back on track. But if you only have one or two angled or crooked teeth that don’t require bite alignment, veneers can give you a uniform smile you can be proud to flash.
If you have any of the tooth problems we mentioned, schedule an appointment at Dr. Aaronson & Associates either by phone or online to talk to one of our specialists about veneers. It’s a quick and easy way to cover almost all your dental flaws.