Hi, it’s Dr Michael Ghobrial here from Sure Dental. Every now and then we get a frantic phone call from a patient saying that they’ve chipped their veneer, what do I do? What do I do about it? Why did my veneer chip? And so I thought I’d write this blog to help you know what to do if you chip your veneer, and some possible solutions for you as well.
Now, if your veneer chips, the first thing you’ve got to do is call your dentist straight away and try to get seen. There’s not much you can do at home, unfortunately. If there’s a big piece of it remaining, that could be a handy thing to take in, just so that your dentist can look and see why it might have chipped. Now, depending on the material used, if it’s a resin veneer, sometimes the chip can be patched up and repaired and restored. In actual fact, resin veneers tend to chip more often than porcelain veneers, and thankfully, repairing them can be a bit more simple.
And depending how long the veneer has been there would depend on whether, certainly as an emergency procedure to keep you smiling, repairing that veneer is a great start. And then assessing whether it’s the right type of veneer in your mouth, whether there’s control over your bite and grinding, whether your bite needs to be opened up a little bit or a night guard needs to be considered, or even some Botox in the jaw to relax things. Understanding why the veneer chipped off is actually very, very important when repairing it so that we don’t find ourselves chipping more veneers.
If it’s a porcelain veneer, again, there’ll be an initial patch-up to repair and restore your smile in the short term. And again, a thorough assessment of why it has chipped. Is it a bond failure? Was it a technique issue? Is it a bite issue? Is it just something really unlucky and it just needs to be replaced? Longer-term solutions for the porcelain veneers when they chip, unfortunately, is replacing the whole veneer. Now, in saying that, thankfully, porcelain veneers don’t tend to chip very often at all.
And so, what do you do when your veneer chips off? First thing is to try to bring in whatever it is that has chipped off so that your dentist can have a look at it. Give them a call straight away so that you can have your smile even temporarily restored so you can go out in confidence. But then make sure a thorough assessment as to why it’s happened, and there are things to mitigate that from happening in the future is really, really important. If you do have veneers that keep chipping off and you need some advice, feel free to contact us through our website at suredental.com.au, through the inquiry form or through direct message on our social media. Or better yet, give us a call on 07 3113 9698.
