Bonding or Veneers?

Bondings and veneers are both ways to repair minor damage or imperfections to teeth, such as a chipped tooth, a gap between teeth, discoloration, or uneven teeth. Both are cosmetic: if you have a cavity, a loose tooth, or a crack in a tooth, you’ll need other types of care. Both are painless.

Bonding involves applying a combination of resin and porcelain to a tooth. I mix the composite material so that it matches the color of your other teeth, then shine a blue light on it to “cure” it. The whole procedure might take 30 to 60 minutes, all on the same office visit. The composite material is pretty resilient: I’ve had patients whose bondings still look good after 20 years, although the norm is two to five.

If you do things that stain your teeth (smoke, or drink a lot of coffee or tea), the bonding may stain, in which case it can be polished like the rest of your teeth. When a bonding fails, it’s most often because of trauma or excessive force. If you like to crack nuts with your teeth, bonding is not the best choice for you.

A veneer is more expensive than bonding (typically about four times the price), but looks more like a natural tooth. That’s because the composite material used for bondings is opaque, but natural teeth are slightly translucent. Veneers, however, are made of ceramic, so the light passes through them as it does through fine china.

For a veneer, I take an impression of your tooth and have a dental lab create a ceramic tooth-cover that exactly fits over the tooth. The veneer is not only translucent, but has striations like a natural tooth - very difficult to mimic in a bonding. To get a veneer, you’ll need one office visit to have the impression made, and another visit several days later to have the veneer applied. Again, I wouldn’t recommend veneers for patients who like to crack nuts with their teeth.

Veneers are ideal if you want to correct minor imperfections to one or several of your front teeth without getting braces on or having the teeth replaced. I can make the veneer’s color match that of the teeth to either side of the veneer. If you’re having all your front teeth done and want a slightly brighter smile, we can adjust the color of the veneers.

If you’re not sure whether your problem is cosmetic or functional, come in for a check-up and we can talk about your options.

If you have general questions about dentistry that you'd like to see addressed on this blog, feel free to email me at sdurante@earthlink.net or through my website, www.DoctorDurante.com. The information on this blog is presented for general education only: consult a dentist for advice on specific problems, diagnoses and treatment.