If You Have Temporary Veneers

beautiful young woman showing off her amazing smileIf you are going through the traditional porcelain veneers process, you will likely have temporary porcelain veneers. These are not as strong as your final veneers, but they’re necessary to protect your teeth while your final veneers are being prepared. Here’s how you can care for them.

If you have experienced discomfort as a result of tooth preparation, take the over-the-counter pain medications that work best for you. Some people find that ibuprofen (like Advil) or naproxen (like Aleve) work better because some discomfort is associated with swelling of the dental pulp.

For soft foods, you can bite into them with temporary veneers. We recommend cutting up and chewing moderately crunchy to very hard foods (steak, fresh vegetables, especially carrots) with the back teeth rather than biting with temporary veneers.

Oral Hygiene with Porcelain Veneers

To protect your porcelain veneers, you have to protect the teeth that have veneers bonded to them. Make sure you brush twice daily and floss every day to prevent decay of your veneered teeth. Depending on your oral health history, we might recommend changes to your oral hygiene routine, including the use of recommended mouth rinses.

You can use regular toothpaste to brush your porcelain veneers, but you can extend the life of them by using a less abrasive toothpaste. Studies show that the glazed surface of veneers can stand up to more than 10 years of brushing with regular toothpaste, but they can last even longer with gentler toothpaste. Avoid whitening toothpaste, which often contains abrasive compounds that can scratch the surface of your veneers.

Bad Habits to Avoid

Under most normal biting and chewing situations, your porcelain veneers should hold up just fine. But your veneers weren’t designed to withstand some of the punishing things people do with their teeth.

Never chew on hard objects other than foods, such as pens and fingernails. This also includes ice cubes and hard candies. Which you should only suck, never chew.

Don’t use your teeth as tools. This includes pliers, scissors, or nutcrackers. Your natural teeth weren’t designed for that, and neither were your veneers. Both can chip or crack by this kind of activity.

Avoid Damaging Situations

Like your natural teeth, porcelain veneers are subject to breaking under extreme forces. It’s important to take precautions to guard your teeth when the situation might put them under undue stress. If you play sports, even non-contact sports like basketball and bicycling, wear a mouthguard.

If you have bruxism or TMJ, you should also wear a mouthguard to protect your porcelain veneers. Uneven bite forces can increase the risk of breaking your veneers by 8 times or more.

We will give you more specific care instructions after we place your veneers, but if you want to talk about getting porcelain veneers in Philadelphia, please call (610) 272-0828 or contact Dental Excellence of Blue Bell.