Hi, I’m Dr Michael Cai, the principal dentist of Pitt St Dental Centre here in Sydney.
This morning, I had a smile consultation with a well-known Australian celebrity. Now, I can’t tell you her name, but you see her often on TV, since she is on the news every night!
She was recommended to us by one of her friends who also had a smile makeover with us. She loves how natural and fresh her friend’s smile looks, which is the same effect she wants to achieve.
During our smile consultation, she said to me, “Hey Michael, what is the process of dental veneers? I’m really busy with work, so I just want to make sure I have the time for it.”
Whether it’s celebrities, judges or homemakers, we are all very busy these days, so this is a very common question we get from our patients. I decided to record this short video explaining the process we go through in getting dental veneers done on a patient.
The first visit is a smile consultation. We start by understanding what you want your smile to look like. We listen to your concerns, understand your lifestyle and past medical/dental history. The idea is so we’d get to know your personality and what sort of smile you want to achieve. We also encourage you to bring photos of the smiles that you like—they could be celebrities’ photos or anything that you find on the internet. We can help you determine if that style suits your face.
At this consultation, we will also check your oral health to make sure you are a good candidate for dental veneers. We will also take high-quality photos, radiographs and 3D scans of your teeth, which we will use as part of the smile design process. At the end of this smile consultation, we will be able to give you cost estimates, help you decide how many veneers you will need, how long it’s going to take to finish, the potential risks and complications, and the prognosis.
When you decide to go ahead, the next visit will be with our ceramist.
The ceramist is a specialist dental technician who will be making your veneers. We work with some of the best ceramists in the world. The appointment is at their studio. They will go into very minute details such as colour, shape, form, and micro-textures. This visit takes about an hour. It’s always important to have good communication between the clinician, the ceramist, and the patient to ensure you get exactly what you want.
When that’s completed, we will design your smile and show you at the following visit. In this visit, we will show you the design, as well as putting the temporary veneers on. You will get to wear your temporary veneers for two to three weeks.
This gives you a chance to assess how they look, whether you like the colour, the shape, the size, and how you talk. We make sure the temporaries are perfect before we proceed with the final.
Once you approve the temporaries, the ceramist will proceed to handcraft your porcelain veneers. When they are ready, you will come in and we will fit the final veneers on for you. We will also show you how to take care of them to make them last as long as possible.
The whole process takes approximately 4-6 weeks. You can be sedated for the preparation appointment and the fitting appointments if you feel a bit anxious. If you are having, say, twenty veneers, that will take around a morning or afternoon, whereas if you are having ten veneers, that will take about a couple of hours.
So that is the full process of porcelain veneers. Every step is done meticulously to ensure optimal results for you. We have mastered the craft and do this thousands of times every year here at Pitt St Dental Centre.
If you’re looking to get a smile makeover that is natural and beautiful, we’d love to look after you.
Simply call us on +61 2 8000 1832, complete the form on our website, or send us a DM on social media, and we’ll help you organise a smile consultation. See you in the next video.
