10 Ways to Ruin a Smile Makeover

Don’t Destroy Your Porce­lain Veneers!

With more than 12 years of doing cos­metic den­tistry under my belt, includ­ing veneers, crowns, bridges, implants, and var­i­ous com­bi­na­tions thereof, it is still sur­pris­ing some­times to hear a new way that a patient has chipped, cracked, or bro­ken one of the beau­ti­ful restora­tions in their smile. Obvi­ously, this is upset­ting for the patient, because it means addi­tional time and money to get it fixed, and no one wants that.  No — not even I want that, because I take pride in the qual­ity of work that I do and want it to last as long as pos­si­ble so I can brag about it.  Seriously!

“Lisa’s” Story of Bro­ken Cos­metic Dentistry

Recently, a long-time patient (name changed for pri­vacy) came in with bro­ken porce­lain on her den­tal bridge — the THIRD one we’ve done for her!  Need­less to say, both the patient and I have been very frus­trated, as we’ve worked hard to cre­ate a strong, long-lasting and beau­ti­ful smile, but some­how, she has kept break­ing the porce­lain off, and this time the bridge had loos­ened on one side, too.

This time, though, Lisa brought in a newslet­ter she’d received from another den­tist, which high­lighted some of the things to avoid or be care­ful of if you’ve had cos­metic den­tistry done.  It turns out, Lisa had been doing sev­eral of them, but never real­ized they might be a prob­lem, so she never men­tioned any of them to me.  Here are the “No-No’s” that she either was recently doing, or was doing previously:

1. Chew­ing pop­corn daily — if you bite into an unpopped ker­nel, you can eas­ily break porcelain
2. Chew­ing hard candy — same thing.  Any­thing hard enough to break a tooth can break a veneer
3. Using a water pick in direct con­tact with the porce­lain –a water pick at low power used BETWEEN the teeth to help remove food, but do NOT put it in con­tact with the porce­lain.  BAD!

There is No “War­ranty” On Bro­ken Den­tal Work

In our office, we usu­ally re-do work at no charge if we deter­mine there was a prob­lem with the lab­work, a prob­lem with the crown not fit­ting as it should (some­times things shift a bit dur­ing bond­ing, for exam­ple), etc etc etc.  How­ever, it is sur­pris­ing and upset­ting for den­tists when patients expect work to be redone for free.….even though it is the patient’s fault that it broke!  No, I am not kid­ding, either.…..I had a patient expect me to redo a 4-year old veneer for free, that she broke when she tried to open a beer bot­tle with her teeth.  DOH! I mean.….you can break your own nat­ural teeth doing that, so of course you can break a porce­lain veneer.  DON’T DO IT! Another patient didn’t come back for a check-up/cleaning for 5 years, and when she did, she had cav­i­ties every­where, but she got mad at ME?  Huh?  Sorry folks — I can only take care of you while you’re at my office — you have to do your part, too. If you don’t.….PLEASE have the decency to tell your den­tist the hon­est truth, and please don’t expect free work because of some­thing you shouldn’t have done.

More Ways to Destroy Cos­metic Dentistry

1. Abra­sive tooth­pastes with bak­ing soda — while the bak­ing soda alone won’t destroy the porce­lain, it removes the glaze over time, mak­ing the crowns look dull and lifeless.
2. Not wear­ing a pro­tec­tive night­guard — when invest­ing large amounts of money in the veneers, PLEASE invest a lit­tle extra in a night­guard to pro­tect them from night­time grind­ing. (Just ask my patient Richard, who refused to believe he was grind­ing his teeth at night until after he’d paid me to redo at least 6–7 porce­lain crowns that he kept break­ing.  A night­guard could have saved him a lot of time and money.  And no, I did not enjoy telling him, “I told you so!”)
   
3. Not wear­ing an ath­letic mouth­guard — if you play con­tact sports, get a mouth­guard.  A stray elbow can eas­ily break teeth.
   
4. Drink­ing a lot of soda, sports drinks (such as Gatorade, Mon­ster, etc) — as I dis­cuss fre­quently with patients — you can still get cav­i­ties around den­tal work.  Any­thing that causes cav­i­ties will still do so, and acidic drinks (even diet ones!) are the worst.
5. Not brushing/flossing — again, a crown or veneer does not make a tooth “immune” to den­tal decay.  Neglect­ing to brush and floss, and not get­ting reg­u­lar den­tal check­ups, is an invi­ta­tion to cav­i­ties.
   
6. Try­ing to open pack­ages with your teeth — just like the hard candy, try­ing to tear some­thing with porce­lain is not the kind of force it is designed to take.  Just don’t.
7. Using alcohol-based mouthrinses — the alco­hol degrades the bond­ing cement over time, so the edges leak, stain col­lects, and even­tu­ally cav­i­ties develop.

Cos­metic Den­tistry Is Expen­sive — Espe­cially the Sec­ond Time!

When patients are con­sid­er­ing porce­lain veneers, den­tal crowns, bridges, etc. and are ask­ing how much cos­metic den­tistry costs, I usu­ally ask in reply, “The first time, or for your whole life?”  This will obvi­ously depend on the person’s age, but a rule of thumb is that a porce­lain veneer can last 10–20 years, maybe even longer.  So you should plan on re-doing your cos­metic den­tistry every 15 years on aver­age.  Con­sider this scenario:

• 30 years old, spend $15,000 for 10 porce­lain veneers

• replace at age 45, age 60, and age 75
• even ignor­ing infla­tion, those 10 porce­lain veneers will cost ANOTHER $45,000 by age 75!  That’s a total of $60,000 — yikes!
• some teeth may break and end up need­ing a den­tal implant, or bridge, or who knows?  That just adds even more money.

What’s the moral of the story?  Basi­cally this:  if you choose a Smile Makeover with porce­lain veneers or some­thing sim­i­lar, please take really good care of them.    And as much as I love doing cos­metic den­tistry and chang­ing someone’s smile, we offer many ways to give you a beau­ti­ful smile, many of which are less expen­sive and less inva­sive.  Please call us and ask about them!

To make an appoint­ment for a Com­pli­men­tary Consultation:

Request an Appoint­ment Online or call us at 704–364-7069.

We’ll look for­ward to meet­ing you soon!