Had Crown Lengthening/gum Lift and Am Now Waiting to Get 6 Feldspathic Veneers - Santa Barbara, CA

I had a very gummy smile with tiny teeth. I have always hated my gummy smile! Finally, at age 57, I had crown lengthening 2 months ago and am proceeding with the 6 veneers in a few weeks.

The crown lengthening procedure was not painful, took about 3 hours and was expensive at $7500. I experienced very little pain or discomfort after the crown lengthening but had to eat soft foods for a week. During the healing stage of the crown lengthening, I have had to endure my teeth looking very strange with huge gaps and misshapen teeth and gums. This has been a bit of an embarrassment, but it will be well worth it.

There is already a huge difference and a friend asked why I didn't do this 20 years ago. The answer is that the technology was not there and I didn't have the excellent dentist/periodontist that I am now fortunate to have. There has been some rebound tissue where the gums have began to grow back, but hopefully my dentist will address this with the veneer prep.

I want to mention that there are many different types of Veneers and it's important to research your options. My dentist uses the Feldspathic because they are the thinnest and most real looking. The fabrication is quite involved and requires an expert lab. It is important to be proactive with your dentist. I actually downloaded photos of shapes of teeth and took these to my dentist to show him what shaped teeth I wanted.

I am now bleaching my teeth so the color of the veneers will be attractive. I want light teeth, but not fake Hollywood blinding white teeth. I did have bonding done to close gaps many years ago and it has held up. I also had some minor gum contouring twice, which did not last, so I had to take the radical crown lengthening approach. I wish I could just do more bonding, but it just won't give me the esthetic look I desire.

I think it is very important to find a dentist who is adept at veneers. I have noticed people who have inflamed purple gums after veneers. This is not normal and there is a problem with the margins of the veneers. Also, the color and opacity of the veneers are important factors. I have noticed that many veneers look fake like piano keys. There is no color gradiation and the veneers look like one solid color. Natural teeth have different shades. Hope this information helps people who are considering crown lengthening and veneers. I am neer prep in a couple of weeks

I am so disappointed with the final veneers! They look fake, opaque, too white, too large and have small triangle shaped gaps in between each tooth. I really trusted the dentist because he is excellent at restorations. He showed me photos of some of the veneers he had done and they looked very natural.

I drove 1 1/2 hours to the dental lab to have the color custom matched. The tech held up two shades and said she would blend them. I noticed that she was sketching some shading on a piece of paper which indicated she was aware of the color graduations in the teeth. I asked to see a wax up and she did not have one.

When I arrived at my appointment, I asked to see the veneers and they were laying in a box and not on a model. The dentist starting preparing to cement the veneers without me even approving the size, shape, or color. I asked to see them tried on the teeth before cementation and he laid them on for 2 seconds and said be careful not to move because they will fall off. If I would have seen them actually tried in, I would have said send them back to the lab. As he was working, I asked about the color and he said they were a bit lighter. I also asked about adjusting the color with the cement and he said he could. Then I mentioned that the lab tech said that many times she will come with her tools to the final cementation appointment and adjust and fine tune the color. I mentioned this to my dentist and he said that it is only necessary when trying to match 1 tooth.

I think it is customary to have a few try ins to make sure the patient and dentist are satisfied. I am so distraught and now regret ever doing this. I wrote a letter to the dentist explaining my disappointment and have a follow up tomorrow. The good thing is that I have not paid yet.

So, do I have him redo or do I try and find someone else who is more experienced at veneers? Also, photos are very deceiving so I am not going to post any at this time. I have noticed that veneers look very good in photos and do not show the flaws and lack of translucency.

Will update after my follow up appointment.

My gums have continued to be irritated, puffy and swollen and the Periodontist and Dentist agree that the biologic width was compromised. The Periodontist wants to wait a couple of months to see if the problem will resolve itself. I honestly do not think this issue will resolve itself. The Periodontist said that more gum surgery will probably have to be done. This will delay the entire veneer process for several more months. My gums still feel very uncomfortable and I am going to get another opinion. The problem is that I do not know of anyone in my area that does excellent veneers.

I am still terribly disappointed in the color, look, size and fit of the veneers besides all of the gum problems. This whole experience has been very depressing and a nightmare. My dentist is reluctantly willing to re-do the veneers but keeps making excuses saying that the lab matched the veneers to the temporaries. This is untrue because my husband was in the room while the tech matched the veneers to the back teeth not the temporaries. My dentist suggested just redoing the back veneers to match the natural teeth. I am unwilling to settle for any compromises! I stated clearly that I want them all redone!

I have been studying people's teeth and notice that most veneers look very fake, too large, bulky, too yellow or too white. I really had high hopes that my expensive dentist and the Da Vinci lab would give me natural beautiful results. What a huge disappointment. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have not paid the dentist yet and will not give him a dime until this is done properly. In fact, he may never be paid, because I am considering using someone else to redo the veneers.

A friend suggested that I contact my local Dental Association and request a Peer Review. For those of you who have had problems with dental work, this organization can help mediate solutions and will help you get a re-do and/or refund for poor dental work.

One week ago, I had the poor fitting veneers removed by a different dentist. After consultations with a different dentist and periodontist, it was determined that the veneers should definitely be removed and temporaries placed for 6 weeks. The traumatized inflamed tissue definitely needs to rest and heal before new veneers are placed. I was definitely not looking forward to having my teeth re-traumatized, but could no longer live with the puffiness, inflammation and big white fake looking teeth. I did take a little Xanax before the procedure to make it more endurable. The worst thing was the loud unbearable grinding noise of removing the old veneers but I was given earplugs which helped.

The new dentist commented that there was a considerable amount of bleeding and that the pain and inflammation on the tongue side near the gum line was caused from the cement being left and being pushed through the front teeth. My old Dentist and Periodontist couldn't determine the cause of the lingual pain and dismissed it, and just said that the tissue was still healing-wrong! The old Periodontist's solution to the gum inflammation was to numb the area and do a deep scaling and cleaning-another wrong! He thought the biological width issue and inflammation would resolve itself after a few months.

After one week, with the new temporaries, my gums look and feel so much healthier!!!! I am experiencing some sensitivity to hot and cold, but no real pain. The temporaries look ok, a bit yellow and not too smooth but feel very secure and comfortable. I am going to be very pro active in getting the final veneer shade and size just right! The new dentist plans on doing several try ins to make sure everything is right. He has asked for feedback on the temporaries on what I like and don't like and we will discuss this at my appointment tomorrow.

At this point, I am hopeful that I will be happy with the final outcome the second time around. One concern is that the gum tissue continues to rebound and more of my gums are again showing when I smile. I really cannot afford to have the new Periodontist re-do the crown lengthening. The new dentist will use a laser to shape and contour the gums unlike the old dentist who used the electro sugery tool to burn away excess gum tissue. The new dentist uses the E-Max veneers instead of the Feldspathic. I pray that there will be translucency and luster to the veneers.


The whole experience with the new dentist has been encouraging and very different from my prior dentist. He was attentive, took photos, was communicative, showed computer photos of veneer cases and was totally willing to listen to my desires of what I want to achieve. He made a wax up of my old veneers and sculpted how he thought the new ones should look. He reduced the size and bulk of one side to show me the difference. I like the new dentist because he is young, current and at the top of his game. He is not burned out or rushed and really wants to protect his reputation.

I never imagined that veneers are so tricky and difficult. It seems so straight forward like getting a crown. This is completely different and I encourage anyone considering veneers to please please do your research and homework! You need to actually meet with patients and actually see the dentist's veneer work and not rely only on photos. Even if a dentist does a lot of veneers, this does not necessarily mean that they are great because they tend to make everyones veneers look the same. There is a local dentist in my area who is considered the veneer man and I was not impressed at all with his veneer work. I just don't want that big hollywood fake white piano key look. I don't want anyone to spot my veneers and think, "nice veneers." Hope I'm not asking too much. Will keep you updated. Thanks for listening to me vent.

The removal of the old veneers was quite tedious and the grinding noise was rather unbearable. Thankfully, I was given earplugs to lessen the grinding noise. I had a fear that all of my teeth were going to be damaged from the veneer removal and I would have to have root canals done on all the previously veneered teeth. Luckily, the dentist did a great job and I didn't have much pain except for some sensitivity to hot and cold.

The redo of the crown lengthening was uneventful except for some gum tissue discoloration and swelling of my lips and mouth. I was concerned about the swelling of my lips because this did not happen in the previous gum surgery. My gums and tissue are healing nicely and now I have to wait another 3 months for the final veneers. Both the new Periodontist and Dentist seem very sympathetic to my situation and have been extremely communicative and pro active with my case. Currently, my biggest complaint is the color of the temporaries are too yellow. I have made this clear that I do not want this color as the finals.

The new dentist made the new temporaries smaller and shorter and they match much better with my other teeth. The new dentist has taken impressions every time I have been examined. The new veneers are $510 more than the first veneers and the crown lengthening re-do was $1695 in addition to the $7500 I previously paid. Fortunately I never paid for the first veneers. The veneer/crown lengthening saga has now been going on for almost a year. Thankfully, the new dentist made the temporaries very solid and strong so they will last for a few months until I am ready for the finals. Stay tuned, and wish me luck.

A week ago, I had the second set of veneers cemented. Needless to say, again, I am not happy with the results. The same exact thing happened as with the previous dentist when I asked to examine the veneers for size, color, shape and fit before the final cementation. I assumed that he was going to use the try in paste, but he just laid them on and I got a brief 2 second glance before he starting the final cementation. The result is that again the teeth are too bright, opaque, one color and there are huge black triangular gaps between the lateral incisors. When I asked about the solid color, he said that it would have looked rather 2 toned if colors were shaded. I asked about the gaps and he said that the gaps will fill in. I highly doubt that the huge gaps will fill in. I wonder why he would go ahead and cement the veneers when he could clearly see the huge gaps. He should have rejected the two incisor veneers and had them remade. Most likely, I will have to have them redone, but will wait patiently for a few months to see if the gaps fill in.

The positive thing is that the shape, size and fit are great. The gum tissue is looking healthy and normal and I have no pain. He made the veneers a bit unperfect, as I requested because I didn't want that fake Hollywood smile. I want to mention that veneers in photos do not look anything like they do in real life. In photos, my veneers look good, but in real life, they look rather fake. I really didn't want a fake veneer look that people would notice. I now notice everyones's teeth and think that most veneers do not look that great. I can easily spot most veneers and wish that the outcome would be a more natural look.

My final thoughts are that yes, my teeth and smile do look better. However, I expected more of my expectations to have been met. I would rate my satisfaction as about 80%. I was really hoping for a 100% satisfaction rate. I am very upset about the huge gaps, but can live with the color.

My advice to anyone considering veneers is to think very seriously and unless you have to do it, DON'T. I had no choice because of the crown lengthening surgery and the terribly small misshapen teeth. I would suggest bonding first, before any veneering. This whole process has been very traumatic and I can't believe after 2 times, I still haven't gotten the results I wanted.

I still am very unhappy with the large black triangle gaps between both lateral incisors. The dentist thinks the tissue will fill in, but I am very doubtful and so far no changes. I just can't believe after so much anguish that I am still unhappy with the results. :(