Veneer case

Recently completed case

I started treating this very nice patient in 2012. His main complaint was that he wasn't happy with his smile and he would like whiter looking teeth and straighter ones.

He thought veneers on all his upper and lower teeth would be the answer, which in some cases this might be the case, but in this instance I suggested this would not be a good long term result due the amount of crowding he had.

The treatment plan was to first straightening his teeth with clear braces. I used a product called Invisalign to do this and due to the amount of crowding, it took over 1.5 years to move his teeth. Once the teeth were in a better position then I started on the cosmetic treatment.

I firstly made diagnostic wax up of his teeth to show what his teeth would look like with veneers and crowns. then I bleached his teeth with both in surgery bleaching followed by home bleaching, which he did for about two weeks.

Then came the very long 5 hour appointment where I prepared 10 of his upper teeth for veneers and one crown on the upper left central incisor. The veneers spanned from upper left second premolar to upper right second premolar. After treatment, I took impressions which was sent to the lab for the work to be made and the technician also came to visit him. He checked the profile of the patient and also took a shade of his teeth.

Before he left I made a temporary crown and veneers, which were lightly cemented on.

Ten days later, the work returned from the lab and I prepared to fit the work. Local anaesthetic was placed to reduce any chance of sensitivity with the teeth prepared. The temporaries were removed and teeth cleaned and the work was placed to check for the fit and appearance. All looked very good and each veneer was cemented using a cement called Nexsus. Everything was polished and any final adjustments made.

The patient was delighted with the final result and now he has lower implants and a few lower aligners to go to complete his treatment

Recent case to show and techniques used

Recent case to show and techniques used

Last week I treated a very nice gentlman who wanted to replace these amalgam restorations into tooth coloured ones.

I want to show you the procedure I used and should be adopted when removing any kind of restoration. This will provide safety for the patient and good visibility for the dentist.

The pink stuff you can see is called rubber dam.

A rubber dam or dental dam is a rectangular sheet of latex used by dentists, especially for root canal treatment, but also for things like tooth-coloured fillings.  Why use a raincoat for your teeth? (Rubber dam) You don’t have to worry about your tongue getting in the way It protects your throat from little bits of tooth debris If you are prone to gagging, it helps to protect your gag reflex area from being triggered It protects the lips and cheeks by keeping them out of the way It keeps the tooth dry – very important nowadays because many materials need a dry clean environment for tooth-coloured fillings to bond properly It can create a distance between yourself and the treatment:  Many people have a fear of the rubber dam because they are worried that they won’t be able to breathe and/or swallow. In the normal way (with the usual rubber dam design, where the sheet is put on a frame), there is lots of room around the sides, so you will be able to breathe through your mouth:  After the rubber dam had been placed, the old amalgam restorations were removed and underlying caries.

The cavities were then lined with a liquid material called fuji II, this has fluoride and allows to bring strength directly to the dentine for upto one year after placement. This type of material is set hard with a blue light for about 20 seconds. The composite ( tooth coloured material ) is then placed in small increments into the cavity and cured at each stage by the blue light. This allows the material to become hard. The final restorations can be seen below. They were then polished and the occlusion ( bite ) of the patient finally checked after the rubber dam was removed and the teeth were given their final polish.