How to take care of veneers

Caring for veneers, specifically ceramic veneers, is practically no different from responsible care of the patient’s own teeth.

Caring for ceramic veneers requires a mandatory dental examination and cleaning every six months. Skipping the dental check-up is highly inadvisable, as teeth can also deteriorate under veneers. Therefore, the dentist must ensure that no pathological changes are occurring beneath the veneers. The cost of the examination and cleaning will be the same as for the patient’s own teeth.

Proper veneer care involves professional cleaning because dental plaque forms on veneers just as it does on natural teeth. Additionally, teeth are only covered by veneers on three-quarters of their surface.

During cleaning, the dentist removes hard and soft dental deposits and uses sandblasting. Polishing paste is only applied to the palatal side of teeth, where they are not covered by veneers. The front part of the veneer is not polished, as ceramics are already perfectly smooth.

Our patients often ask: “How do I take care of veneers at home?” The answer is very simple: the same way you used to care for your teeth, but only if you were doing it correctly. Caring for veneers on teeth does not require special effort.

At-home veneer care involves using:

• a toothbrush.

It does not matter whether it is electric or not, but it is important to thoroughly clean hard-to-reach areas, such as the posterior section of the lower jaw. It is essential to brush teeth from the lingual side, as well as to clean the tongue and cheeks;

• a single-tuft toothbrush.

Necessary for thorough cleaning of the 7th and 8th teeth, which are quite difficult to clean with a regular brush;

• dental floss.

Helps remove bacteria and plaque between teeth;

• an irrigator.

Among other things, it is necessary for cleaning the gingival sulcus.

To make sure your teeth are cleaned properly, you can use plaque disclosure tablets. They stain poorly cleaned areas that need attention.

Composite veneers are a type of intraoral restoration, during which the dentist removes a small layer of the patient’s own tissue and fills it with photopolymer material. This artistic dental restoration is performed by the dentist without involving a dental laboratory. The amount of natural tissue removed when placing ceramic veneers and creating composite veneers is approximately the same. However, in the first case, a pressed ceramic structure is used, and in the second – photopolymer.

Composite veneers, unlike ceramic ones, require constant care. At least once every two years, composite veneer correction is necessary.

During correction, the top layer of photopolymer material that has absorbed tea, coffee, wine, and darkened is removed. Sometimes, complete restoration requires removing all the material and installing new composite veneers. In this process, an additional portion of tooth tissue is removed to ensure adhesion (bonding) of the photopolymer material to the tooth.

Home care for composite veneers also involves constant and thorough cleaning. In this case, proper veneer care requires rinsing your mouth immediately after consuming staining liquids, such as red wine.

Sometimes dentists recommend limiting the consumption of tea, coffee, red wine, and quitting smoking. However, even with these conditions met, cleaning alone will not be sufficient to maintain composite veneers in the same condition they were in immediately after the artistic restoration was performed.

At the same time, proper care for composite veneers will help postpone the need for their complete correction.

At Osadchyi Dental Clinic, we do not recommend our patients get composite veneers. Yes, artistic dental restoration on average in Kyiv costs three times less than ceramic veneers. But considering the need for constant correction, after six years the patient will pay the same amount for an incomparably inferior aesthetic result.