Gapped Teeth: A No-Prep Partial Veneer Treatment Case

Hello, I'm Park Jonguk, director of Dream Dental Clinic.

Veneers are one of the treatments used to make teeth look better.

By attaching an extremely thin ceramic plate to the tooth,

this treatment improves the tooth's shape, color, and more.

Depending on the condition of the tooth,

sometimes the tooth needs to be reduced,

and sometimes it's possible without any reduction at all.

Of course, in some cases the tooth ends up being reduced excessively,

and these are cases that shouldn't be treated with veneers,

because forcing it this way leads to side effects.

If there are gaps between the teeth,

it's a perfect case for treating with veneers without any tooth reduction.

Of course, no-prep partial veneers aren't possible in every case,

but for a case of gapped teeth,

let's look at how the treatment is done.

When teeth are gapped like this,

orthodontics is usually the first method that comes to mind.

The problem is that this patient developed the gaps after orthodontic treatment,

and orthodontics wasn't easy again because of the position of the lower teeth.

Another method is filling the gap with a material called resin.

Resin is relatively inexpensive and simple to treat with,

but it discolors over time.

People who drink a lot of coffee can see discoloration within just a few months.

Ceramic is another material used to fill the gap,

and the method of filling only the gapped part

is called a partial veneer.

Since the patient had no complaints about the shape or color of the other teeth,

we decided to fill only the gap between the teeth with a veneer.

We fabricate an extremely thin ceramic veneer made to fill just that gap.

This method of fabrication

isn't possible with the simple fabrication process

made by the computer-based approach that's popular these days.

Using a refractory model,

we fabricate a feldspathic ceramic veneer.

It's made to fit neatly into the gap like this.

Because it's so thin and translucent,

once it's bonded on,

unless you look very closely,

it's quite difficult to tell apart from the natural tooth.

This can likewise be applied to cases where the lower teeth have gaps between them like this.

Using ceramic that's extremely thin, on the order of 0.1mm,

we fabricate a partial veneer that fills the gap.

Because fabrication is so demanding and difficult,

there are hardly any clinics that still do it this way these days

Just like in the case above,

once it's bonded on,

unless you look very closely,

it's quite difficult to tell apart from the tooth.

No-prep partial veneer treatment for gapped teeth like this

with absolutely no damage to the tooth

has the advantage that treatment is still possible,

and it also lasts much longer than resin.

Since 2006, Dream Dental Clinic