Getting Composite Dental Veneers - Beachwood, OH

To start the procedure, the dentist compared a few shades of the composite resin to my surrounding teeth. Proper color is one of the most important factors in having natural looking veneers. Please take note that the dentist will need to completely dry out your teeth to prevent saliva from diminishing the effectiveness of the glue. This lack of moisture causes new direct composite veneers to look unnaturally chalky and yellow for the first few days. If the color doesn’t match correctly within a week, you should let your dentist know, and schedule to get them redone. As a precaution, ask your dentist about their redo policy, should your new veneers not come out as expected / desired.After finding the right shade of resin, which for me was a 50/50 mixture of A1 and C1, he began working on the first tooth. Typically, direct composite veneers are no-prep, (no drilling or shaving required), however, I opted for some prep, (to help with adhesion), which required a slight filing down of the front of my original teeth. The prep was completely painless, so painkillers and novocaine weren’t needed, (it felt similar to a routine cleaning).Once the tooth was dried and prepped, an adhesive was brushed onto its surface, and the composite resin was applied. The dentist used a few tools to artistically hand-craft the resin into a tooth-like shape, and a special curing light to harden the resin and keep it in place.To finish, the hardened resin was buffed with a file, inspected for size and fit, (since I have an overbite), and polished. The entire procedure only took about three hours.Immediately following the procedure, my new composite veneers felt rough and grainy. However, this was only temporary. After a couple days of normal drinking / hygiene habits (water, mouthwash, brushing, etc.), they began to feel as smooth as my normal teeth. Indirect composite veneers are usually smooth from square one, (because they’re created in a lab), while direct composite veneers, which are crafted from liquid resin directly on the surface of your tooth, initially tend to feel more coarse.

For most of my adult life, I wasn’t happy with my smile. I’d always had gapped teeth (two front buckteeth), and peg-shaped lateral incisors, which made me embarrassed to smile, laugh, or even talk around people I didn’t know. And to make matters worse, as a teenager, I was told that braces would never fix my problem, because the gap was caused by an upper-lip frenulum. I had to find an alternative to braces; something that would “replace” these teeth, but was less expensive, and hopefully less painful, than dental implants. After some research, I decided on getting composite dental veneers, and documented my research, and the process, on YouTube). Since I've gotten them done, I've stopped worrying about what my teeth look like when I smile or speak in public. Actually, the day after I got them done, a complete stranger actually came up to me an told me I have a "really pretty smile." Oddly enough, though, my friends and family didn't really notice what had changed, or even remember what my teeth used to look like once I mentioned it... they just knew something was different about me. Whether it's that I'm more comfortable in my own skin again, or that people treat you differently when you have nice teeth, getting veneers has been an all around great decision.