Veneers or Crowns for Chipped Front Teeth? (photo)

Teeth bonding is done with a composite resin that can restore both aesthetics and function to your smile. Placed on both the front and back of teeth, the composite resin used in teeth bonding provides a strong, long-lasting, and seamless appearance to smiles impacted by decay or marred by cosmetic imperfections. Teeth bonding also requires very little of your natural tooth to be removed for these procedures, allowing more of your natural tooth to be preserved. Moreover, teeth bonding is done in one office visit, making it a much simpler and faster procedure.

The material used in teeth bonding is not as strong as other restorative options, and may discolor, chip, or break over time. Knowing that the needs of each patient is unique, we always recommend our patient to consider options in terms of aesthetics and duration.

Veneers are made of thin layer of porcelain, even though it sounds fragile, it is not. They never discolored and it looks great all the time. It is hard to determine from the photo if you need more than 2 veneers, but keep in consideration that if you are going to spend the money, think about doing teeth whitening and then take care of the front teeth. If you go to a great cosmetic dentist he will be able to make two beautiful veneers and have everything match perfectly. I do no think you need more than 2 if you are happy with the shape of your existing teeth.

Based on your photograph, porcelain laminate veneers are a better choice than crowns as the preparation for the placement involves less reduction of your natural teeth. If done with a good ceramist, I also see no reason to prepping an additional two teeth as the central incisors (two front teeth) are the only ones that sustained any damage. It also appears that you chipped the incisal edges of your teeth and as a future reference you should immediately look for any fractured pieces of tooth and place them in milk (to keep them from decalcifying) or salt water if no milk is available. Often these pieces can be rebonded as well.