Even with good dental hygiene and care, your teeth may show signs of wear as you age. Fortunately, we now have ways to treat these symptoms of aging and restore a youthful look and function to your teeth and jaws.

How Do Teeth Wear?

All the tissues in your body are constantly in a process of breaking down (catabolism) and rebuilding (anabolism). During childhood the anabolic processes exceed the catabolic processes. But after you have reached physical maturity the balance changes and the breakdown process begins to draw ahead of the building up. The result: signs of wear.

In your teeth, the outer layer, the enamel, is a hard, mineralized substance that is resistant to wear. Under the enamel is a layer called dentin, which is a living tissue something like bone. As teeth age, the dentin layer thickens, causing teeth to lose some of their whiteness. Most wear to your teeth comes from the pressure of the upper and lower teeth's biting surfaces against each other. How much wear occurs depends on your bite or occlusion (how the teeth are aligned, and how they meet) and the ways in which you use your teeth.

Constant interactions between the biting surfaces of your teeth result in removal of small amounts of enamel. Your body naturally compensates for this wearing away of material. As teeth wear, they erupt from your jaws by tiny amounts, moving slightly up or down to stay in the proper occlusal relation with the teeth on the other jaw. They also slowly move toward the front of your mouth.

If the wear becomes excessive, your body can no longer compensate for it. At this point you may find that your bite relationships are not working correctly, and the lower third of your face loses height. This creates or accentuates an older appearance.

Some people clench or grind their teeth, applying greater than normal — and damaging — forces to their teeth. This problem, often a reaction to stress, is called bruxism. It can cause a number of problems from jaw pain to loose teeth or excessive wear or tooth fractures. If you suffer from excessive wear due to bruxism, a professionally made mouthguard may prevent further damage.

Modern Dentistry Can Restore a Youthful Look

Modern dentistry can successfully restore the normal shape, appearance and function of worn teeth by installing porcelain crowns or veneers. These not only replace the tooth structure lost through wear, but they also restore the bite relationship. Crowns on excessively worn teeth can dramatically improve tooth color and facial appearance, resulting in a more harmonious, younger look.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to discuss your questions about dental wear and aging. You can also learn more by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “How and Why Teeth Wear.”

A veneer is a cosmetic dental procedure that we use in some situations to correct discolored teeth, small spaces or gaps between teeth, small chips or oddly shaped teeth, and teeth that are slightly misaligned by placing a thin shell covering over the teeth. They are artistically hand-crafted by lab technicians out of tooth-colored porcelain using precise molds that we have made in our office. We attach veneers to the tooth's surface using a special adhesive that creates a chemical bond. Veneers are often a key component in a smile makeover.

Traditional veneers will require some tooth preparation, a process where we reduce or file down some of the facial (front, visible) portion of your tooth by 0.3 to 0.7 millimeters. For this reason this cosmetic procedure is not reversible.

How Long Do They Last?

Veneers can last from 7 to 20+ years depending on how you care for them. This may include sleeping in a protective, professionally made mouthguard. And while porcelain is a durable material that can withstand a great deal of pressure, you must remember that they are a type of glass. You could possibly shatter a veneer if you bite into anything that requires a hefty amount of twisting movement and biting pressure.

By using the latest technologies and procedures, we will create the naturally beautiful smile of your dreams and we will restore your mouth to full functionality and optimal health. Contact us today to discuss your questions or to schedule a consultation.

Want To Learn More?

Learn more about veneers when you continue reading the exclusive article from Dear Doctor, “Smile Design Enhanced With Porcelain Veneers.”

While we have gained recognition for our role in creating gorgeous smiles with porcelain veneers, the often overlooked or unknown key contributors in this process are the dental laboratory technicians. These behind-the-scenes artists are the trained professionals in the art of using dental porcelain to hand-craft veneers and crowns into near exact replicas of natural teeth in shine, opacity, translucence and shape.

Through the use of precise molds and excellent communication skills, we share detailed information with the laboratory technician to create veneers or crowns specifically for enhancing and improving your smile. In fact, communication must be so exact that it often demands correct lighting, cameras and computers to produce optimal results. This process also requires a variety of colors, shapes and translucency, created so that once we cement them into place, they appear as beautiful natural teeth. If your veneers are part of a smile restoration or makeover and you are getting them for several front teeth, the end results are typically brighter and whiter than your natural teeth. However, they must blend with surrounding teeth if those teeth are not also receiving veneers. So it is often recommended to have your natural teeth whitened before the veneers are replaced.

Good dental porcelains in the right hands can make for spectacular tooth imitations by mimicking tooth enamel perfectly. And now that you have these facts, you begin to understand all of the expertise, artistry, and the technology required by laboratory technicians to produce the most dazzling porcelain veneers.

To learn more about porcelain veneers, continue reading the Dear Doctor article, “Smile Design Enhanced With Porcelain Veneers.” Or if you are ready to see what cosmetic dentistry can do for you, contact us to schedule a consultation.