My daughter had an accident several years back that damaged her two front teeth quite a bit. Both needed a dental crown. One also needed a root canal treatment. The tooth with the root canal treatment has turned darker over the years and it was really bothering my daughter. Being a teenager is hard enough, so I took her to our dentist to get them to look better. He said he could give her two porcelain veneers to replace the crowns. When they were placed on her teeth, they were elongated, which made them look better, but the root-canaled tooth was still grey and bulky. It stood out quite a bit from the other one. When we asked him about it, he said he did the best anyone could do given the material he had to work with. He felt it was unreasonable to expect the two teeth to match. Are we being unreasonable? We paid a lot to improve her smile. While it is better, we were hoping for the teeth to match.
Lauren
Dear Lauren,
No. I do not think you are being unreasonable. I would think having your teeth match is the bare minimum when “improving” someone’s smile. I looked at the pictures you sent and they are nowhere near close. The first thing I would do is ask for a complete refund. I can also tell you what you received were not porcelain veneers. As you can see from the image to the left, veneers use hardly any tooth preparation. Once you have dental crowns made, the teeth are ground down too far for porcelain veneers to be bonded to them. If he told you he gave you veneers, he misrepresented your treatment. That works in your favor because it is grounds for your refund.
You can get your daughter’s smile to match but I would not even begin to hope that your current dentist could do it. While it takes a top cosmetic dentist to match a single crown to the other teeth, when an underqualified cosmetic dentist needs to do that they simply do two crowns, which just about anyone can match. Your dentist could not even do that.
I would like you to find an AACD accredited dentist to work with your daughter. You’ll be pretty much guaranteed a stunning smile for your daughter. In fact, almost all of them have a beautiful smile guarantee. One thing they are likely to do is use teeth whitening to get the underlying tooth from the root canal whiter, so they match more closely. Then he can fill in the area with a composite to finish the fix before adding the dental crown. That should make it match just fine.
Best of luck to both of you. This blog is brought to you by Des Moines Cosmetic Dentist Dr. Phelan Thomas.