Posted by writeradmin
I went to my dentist because I have a huge tooth gap and want to have a smile I am not ashamed of. He suggested I get braces, but I don’t want to do that. I’m 40 years old, which is way too old for a mouth full of metal. He is planning on taking a Lumineers course where he can do smile makeovers. He said, if I don’t mind waiting until he finishes, we can do a temporary solution now, then do Lumineers when he is done. I agreed to that. We went through the whole hullabaloo of a snap-on smile, but the company called and said that it won’t work in my case. Is there another temp option while he does his course? He said the course is short but is still two months away for the one he’s doing. My gap is about 9mm wide. My end goal is to have teeth that don’t have a huge gap and, eventually, get them white too.
Lilly
Dear Lilly,
Please don’t get Lumineers. I think your dentist is well meaning, but going to a Lumineers two-day seminar is not going to make him an expert cosmetic dentist. Lumineers is simply a brand of porcelain veneers. This particular brand is highly marketed to dentists who do not have a lot of cosmetic training as being easy to place. Unfortunately, placing them and creating beautiful ones are two different skill sets completely.
Porcelain veneers are an advanced cosmetic procedure which is part technical skill and part artistry. It takes significant post-doctoral training to become skilled at doing them. Plus, your case is an especially difficult one. The size of your tooth gap is large enough to fit another tooth in. That would take one of the top cosmetic dentists in the country to do correctly.
A Better Solution—Invisalign
The good news is that you won’t need Lumineers. You said your goals were to get your tooth gap closed and to whiten them. Porcelain veneers would be a major over treatment, and massively expensive, for those goals. These are designed for complete smile makeovers, like the Hollywood celebrities get. They can change the shape, size, and color of your teeth.
Instead, I am going to recommend that you get Invisalign. These can straighten your teeth without braces, and without anyone even knowing that you’re using them. Instead of metal wires and brackets, they use clear aligners. No one will know you are wearing them even at a conversational distance.
This will carefully close your tooth gap. It also has the wonderful benefit of doubling as teeth whitening trays as well. Your dentist can provide you with professional strength teeth whitening gel that you can wear in your Invisalign aligners. This allows you to straighten and whiten your teeth simultaneously, for a fraction of the cost you would pay with porcelain veneers, no matter what the brand.
This blog is brought to you by a top-rated dentist in Baton Rouge, LA, Dr. John Theriot.