Hi. It’s Dr Michael Ghobrial here from Sure Dental at Wavell Heights in Brisbane.
Just this Monday, I was seeing Claire, a new cosmetic patient from Hendra, who came in to discuss getting some porcelain veneers. She’s got her wedding coming up, and she wants to improve her smile, and rightfully so. One of the things she was concerned about was how much tooth structure needed to be removed to have porcelain veneers. She said to me, “Hey Michael, I was watching some videos on Tik Tok, and this dentist was showing the teeth getting shaved off in preparation for porcelain veneers. Do I need to shave my teeth for dental veneers?”
I think it’s a great question, and I’m so glad that she’s concerned about preserving her tooth structure. And so, I thought I would record this video to help you answer that question, do I need to shave my teeth to have porcelain veneers?
Well, the first answer to this question is really about what kind of result we want to achieve. We don’t know how much tooth reduction is required until we know where we want the smile to land. And so the most important part of being able to answer that question is actually getting a really good diagnostic mock-up, a digital design of the smile that we want to achieve, and being able to try it in our patients’ mouths to see what it is that we need to achieve to get this smile.
And oftentimes, what we need to do is reduce the thickness from that finish point of where we want that smile to be. For the vast majority of our patients, do we need to shave their teeth back? The actual answer is very, very, very minimal tooth reduction. We don’t like no-prep veneers because the margins end up too bulbous at the gum level. They look quite fake. They’re also very hard to keep clean and cause issues and don’t last as long as a well-prepared porcelain veneer.
Having said that, we also aim to preserve as much tooth structure as possible. Many of our patients are pleasantly surprised during our porcelain veneer procedures when we shape and polish their teeth, realising that we don’t even require anesthesia for this due to the minimally invasive nature of effective porcelain veneer reduction.
Now, in those cases where there needs to be significant shaving back of teeth, that is when we start considering whether some pre-orthodontics or Invisalign is required to reduce the amount of tooth structure reduction.
At Sure Dental, we believe that preserving your tooth structure is of utmost importance, and that’s why I love the question, do I need to shave back my teeth?
The answer is that we do require a well-defined finish line in order to create well-contoured veneers. However, our goal is to minimise tooth reduction to the absolute minimum while still achieving a beautiful and natural-looking smile.
I hope you find this video helpful.
So, if you have been exploring upgrading your smile with dental veneers, we would love to look after you. Cosmetic dentistry and porcelain veneers are one of our most popular treatments, so you know you are in experienced hands.
Here at Sure Dental, we offer flexible payment plans, so you can achieve your smile faster.
Simply contact us on 07 3113 9698, complete the form on our website, or reach out to us via our social media, and we will help you organise your smile consultation. See you in the next video.
