No-Prep Veneers for Teeth Eroded by Acid, Including Acid Reflux

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

Teeth are quite vulnerable to acid.

You've probably heard, on TV or in other media,

about how carbonated drinks like cola or soda

can erode teeth so quickly —

stories like that.

Acid corrodes and dissolves many kinds of materials.

Teeth are no exception.

When exposed to acid for a long time,

teeth become significantly eroded and damaged.

This can also happen from eating a lot of highly acidic foods.

Among foods, one that's especially acidic

is red wine.

There's a scale called pH that measures acidity,

where pH 7 is neutral,

and anything below that number is acidic.

The lower the number, the stronger the acid.

Red wine usually sits around pH 3-4,

making it fairly strongly acidic as far as food goes.

The carbonated drinks mentioned earlier are also quite strongly acidic.

Since they usually don't stay in the mouth very long, this generally isn't a problem,

but excessive consumption can still lead to tooth erosion.

But something that causes even more tooth erosion than these foods is stomach acid.

Stomach acid has a pH below 2, making it quite strong.

Cases where stomach acid backs up from the stomach include

having acid reflux,

habitual vomiting,

and morning sickness during pregnancy, among others.

With acid reflux, when symptoms aren't severe, many people leave it untreated,

so among people who have had this condition for a long time,

tooth erosion is a fairly common outcome.

This patient's teeth were eroded by long-term acid reflux,

and the eroded areas had been treated with resin.

Because the resin kept discoloring and had to be retreated multiple times,

rather than repeat this cycle, she came in for a longer-lasting solution.

Looking inside the mouth,

you can see that the inner surface of the teeth had eroded quite extensively.

In addition to erosion, cavities had also developed.

In a state where the tooth is already this badly damaged,

reducing the tooth structure any further

would leave very little tooth behind, which can't be good for its health.

In cases like this, where erosion from acid reflux is severe,

we turn to no-prep veneers.

But rather than a standard no-prep veneer,

we use a method called the Sandwich Technique.

A no-prep veneer is placed on the inner surface of the tooth,

and then another no-prep veneer is placed on the outer surface,

wrapping the tooth front and back like a sandwich.

The molars had also eroded considerably,

so we removed the decay

and decided to treat them with a veneer-style restoration.

Through a precision wax-up diagnosis,

we work out what the treatment outcome will look like.

Rather than a standard veneer that's bonded only to the front surface,

veneers need to be bonded to both the front and back,

and only when that process is done with great precision

can the result be accurate and beautiful, without irritating the gums,

and lead to a veneer treatment that lasts a long time.

First, we remove the existing resin.

Before placing the veneers, all cavities in the teeth must be treated as well.

In this state, we take an impression,

and first proceed with the inner-surface veneer and the treatment of the molars.

Ceramic in the veneer style,

made to wrap the molars, was fabricated.

It removes the cavity and any previously treated material and covers the eroded area,

and because it involves almost no reduction of the tooth,

it can protect the tooth.

A material that's quite thin yet strong is used.

The no-prep veneer to be bonded to the inner surface of the tooth has now been fabricated.

This is one side of the Sandwich Technique.

The enamel had been entirely lost to acid reflux,

leaving only dentin, so we have to take great care with the bonding.

We seated the inner-surface veneer ceramic first.

You can see that the molars were also treated to feel like natural teeth.

The no-prep veneer for the outer surface of the tooth was completed as well.

We preserved as much of the natural tooth's color and shape as possible.

The goal was to match the patient's facial tone so the veneers wouldn't look like veneers at all.

With no tooth reduction beyond removing the decay and the old material,

the teeth became as beautiful and natural as if they had been reborn.

From this condition,

the teeth changed to look this natural

and this beautiful.

Treating teeth eroded by acid from reflux

with no-prep Sandwich Technique veneers, without any tooth reduction,

is technically very demanding and only possible with a great deal of accumulated experience.

In particular, treating even the molars this way,

using a method that naturally minimizes reduction,

in cases where acid erosion has already progressed significantly,

is extremely important.

Natural beauty

Since 2006, Dream Dental Clinic