Retreating Problematic Veneers and All-Ceramic Crowns

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

Whenever I remove an all-ceramic crown or veneer that's over 10 years old,

I always feel a sense of worry beforehand.

Some clinics have taken cases that needed orthodontic treatment

and forced them into veneer or all-ceramic crown treatment instead,

so having seen such cases before,

I find myself wondering whether this might be one of those.

This kind of case comes up quite often.

If veneer treatment was done when orthodontics was actually needed,

the biggest problem

is that far too much tooth has already been removed.

Another problem is

that because the position of the tooth isn't good,

even if veneer retreatment is done,

it's hard for the result to come out very good.

It should have been properly diagnosed and treated correctly from the start.

More recently, rather than this kind of forced treatment,

the result often just turns out too unnatural.

This happens because the ceramic fabrication is oversimplified,

with none of the detailed expression that's needed.

This is an all-ceramic crown that the patient believed was a veneer she had for over 10 years.

The reason I put it this way

is that a veneer is a tooth-reshaping method that removes only a small amount of tooth,

while an all-ceramic crown removes a great deal of tooth,

and some clinics have placed all-ceramic crowns

while calling it veneer treatment.

More recently, some clinics do veneer treatment

but give it a different name, as if it's a different treatment entirely.

Confusing patients like this over naming

is, frankly, the wrong thing for a dentist to do.

There were simply too many different problems,

so there was a lot that needed to be addressed.

The biggest issue, without question,

was that the teeth were tilted quite severely.

The gums had deteriorated with severe recession,

making this a case that also required gum treatment alongside everything else.

The shape of the teeth was also very awkward and artificial.

Working out how to treat this

first requires an analysis of the current condition.

Along with radiographs,

we need to analyze what exactly the problems are.

What kind of gum problems there are,

what the position of the teeth is like,

and how much of the tooth has already been reduced are all analyzed.

Then, using wax,

we predict what the tooth shape will look like after veneer retreatment

and build it out.

This process is called a precision wax-up diagnosis.

We removed the veneer.

The condition was truly severe.

The amount of tooth already reduced was already at a serious level,

and the gums had deteriorated so badly

that recovery was difficult.

Given this situation, for the sake of gum health

and aesthetic goals alike,

treatment had to be carried out doing everything possible.

The veneer retreatment has been completed.

The teeth now look far more natural and beautiful.

By giving them natural dimensionality,

the teeth now carry a sense of vitality,

with a variety of expression added area by area,

and enough translucency built into the edges of the teeth,

the teeth were rendered

natural and beautiful at the same time.

Because the gum condition was so poor to begin with,

there was a limit to how natural the gum shape could be made,

but all of the inflammation cleared up, leaving the gums healthy.

Natural beauty

Since 2006, Dream Dental Clinic