Is the Mock Up Supposed to Be Exactly As the Final Result?

My first question, is did the dentist do the mock up on your teeth (placing composite resin on them temporarily) or are you referring to a waxup that was done on a model of your teeth?  Although they can both accomplish visualization of the final result, they both are different and have different advantages and disadvantages.

If it was a mock up on your unprepared teeth, then they will be thicker than the final result.  And obviously, the ceramist who will make your final veneers will have days to make the veneers as perfect as possible.  Usually this type of mock up is to determine whether the teeth are to be any longer, some idea of the color, and how chips, spaces or overlapping teeth "might" look with veneers.  Almost always the patient is not numb when this type of mock up is done, so after completed you can get some idea looking in the mirror.  Then, most likely the dentist will take impressions of the mock up and then remove them off your teeth before you leave.

However, another more commonly used technique is to have the lab make a diagnostic wax up of the teeth off of an impression.  Usually the diagnostic wax up on the model is much more refined looking than an in-the-mouth mock up.  The teeth won't be thicker either and much more closely approach the size and thickness of what the dentist is hoping to accomplish in the final veneers.

The next step after the wax up is for the veneer preparation appointment of your teeth.  The cosmetic dentist will shape the teeth as little as possible, and oftentimes they can make something called a "reduction shim" to tell the dentist exactly where to drill, so minimal drilling of the teeth can be accomplished.  Then, using another tool, called a "provisional stent" (or Siltex stent) the dentist can transfer the design of the diagnostic wax up onto your teeth as temporaries.  Thus, your temporaries should look much more like the shape of the final veneers.  You might end up wearing these temporaries for 7-15 days, before the final veneers are made.

In our cosmetic dental practice we do an extra step that allows the patient to "test drive" the smile design before the final directions are sent to the ceramist as to how to make the final porcelain veneers.  We call this the "trial smile".  We put the temporary veneers on the patients prepared teeth.  The patient wears the "trial smile" for several days, giving the patient the opportunity to evaluate the color, shape, length and proportion of all the teeth that will be receiving porcelain veneers.  If the patient wants any changes, they can be done to the temporary veneers ("trial smile") or note to the ceramist to follow.  Again, these changes are most commonly the color, length, shape and proportion of each of the temporary veneers.

Then, after making these adjustments to the patient's satisfaction, or noting them to the ceramist, we take photos of the new, adjusted "trial smile", take an impression for a template model, and measure the actual approved length.  By then providing the ceramist with all this detailed information it now serves as a more accurate blueprint of how the ceramist is to fabricate the final porcelain veneers.

The reason we believe the "trial smile" stage is so important is that it eliminates much guess work from the ceramist and more appropriately insures that the patient will get the final result he/she is looking for.  I cannot stress how extremely important this "test drive" of the smile is!  It is worth the extra appointment and time.  When patients do not receive the results they had hoped for, and porcelain veneers have to be redone, this doesn't serve anybody well...neither the patient, the cosmetic dentist or the ceramist from the dental lab.

For more information regarding the diagnostic wax up and the "trial smile" I refer you to the link below that shows many examples.

The mock-up is a great tool to get an idea of what things will look like. The limitations of the mock up is that it has to be all additive and the material used it resin/acrylic. So it will tend to look bulky and somewhat opaque. The final result in porcelain should always look much better since the teeth will be prepared and the material will be more life-like porcelain. It should not look bulky. Also, the finals will be individual as opposed to stuck together.

good luck

Dr. T