Aug
Getting teeth veneers is the first step toward achieving your goal of a beautiful smile. Keeping your veneers in great shape is equally important to retain your smile’s gorgeous appearance long-term. When caring for veneers, there are dos and don’ts you should become familiar with. Proper care can extend the lifespan of your veneers so you can enjoy your beautiful smile longer. Your Riverside, California dentist, Dr. Neal Edwards, and our team offer tips for keeping your veneers strong and healthy in the long term.
Whether you have veneers on a few teeth or all of them, consider these dos and don’ts to maximize your treatment:
Oral Hygiene: Do brush and floss your teeth daily to keep your veneers free of plaque and tartar, which can tarnish their appearance and lead to cavities.
Dental Cleaning: Do see your dentist for routine exams and cleanings. We can check your veneers for signs of decay or wear and tear during routine exams. Routine cleaning will keep your veneers bright and healthy over the years.
Teeth Grinding: Do wear a night guard when you sleep if you have a problem with teeth grinding. This helps protect your teeth and veneers from chipping or cracking prematurely.
Stain-Causing Drinks: Do drink coffee, tea, wine, and other stain-causing beverages in moderation, and rinse your teeth afterward. Although porcelain veneers are stain-resistant, nearby non-veneer teeth are not. Limiting stain-causing foods and drinks will keep your smile looking its best in the long term.
Diet: Do maintain a nutritious diet to promote the health of your teeth and gums. Avoid sugary foods and beverages that can ruin teeth and derail veneer treatment.
Ice/Hard Foods: Don’t chew on ice or any hard foods, for that matter. Biting down on hard or sticky foods can chip or crack veneers or cause them to come loose. Using a straw when drinking beverages with ice can make it easier to break the ice-chewing habit.
Using Teeth Like Tools: Don’t use your teeth to open packages or flip caps off of bottles, as you can crack or break a tooth, whether it has veneers or not. Teeth were designed for eating and smiling – that’s it!
Smoking: Don’t smoke if you can help it! Smoking is highly detrimental to your oral health. Smokers have a higher risk of gum disease, which can cause failure of their veneer treatment. If you smoke, veneers may not be the best cosmetic procedure for you.
Toothbrush/Toothpaste: Don’t use a hard toothbrush or abrasive toothpaste to brush your veneers. Veneers need quality care with gentle products that won’t scratch their surface. A soft bristle toothbrush and nonabrasive toothpaste will keep your teeth and veneers fresh and clean.
For quality porcelain veneer treatment and aftercare in the Riverside, CA area, contact Neal Edwards DDS at (951) 614-0033.
Dr. Neal Edwards, DDS, FICOI, studied Biology at La Sierra University before earning his dental degree from the Loma Linda University School of Dentistry. A practicing dentist since 2007, he loves meeting new people and helping them achieve their dental goals through pleasant dental experiences.Dr. Edwards holds memberships in the American Dental Association, California Dental Association, American Academy of Implant Dentistry, and International Congress of Oral Implantologists (ICOI). He is very keen on continuing education and completed his ICOI Fellowship recently. He had also completed a mini-residency in implant dentistry from Loma Linda University. He is a Team Dentist for the Ontario Reign hockey team - LA Kings’ AHL affiliate.
My name’s Aaron Phillips, and I’ve been a patient of Dr. Edwards for about seven years since he opened his practice. The treatment that I’ve received that’s made the biggest difference in my smile has really been addressing my grinding. So I grind a lot. I grind at night, I grind during the day. I’m clenching, and so I’ve cracked a molar and he’s had to fill another molar where I’ve just ground away. It’s down to dentin, and that’s made a big difference for me in terms of pain and coping through the day. So through his treatment, Dr. Edwards has really helped, I think, preserve and save my teeth because I just grind so hard. But he’s also helped me address pain that I have throughout the day. I have a lot of jaw pain. It creates headaches and tension in my neck, and it was really impacting my daily life.
And so with his help, I’ve been able to address that and save my teeth. So Dr. Edwards, his entire team make us feel really comfortable here in the office. They greet us, they know us, they know the details of our family and our kids. And because we’ve been patients for so long, they just really make us feel like we’re home. It’s a very comfortable environment for us. If folks are interested in getting dental treatment, I think they should choose Dr. Edwards because he’s honest and trustworthy and he’ll tell you what you need and then he’ll follow through. And his staff, they’re amazing. They make you feel very comfortable, very trusting, and they make you feel like family.
My name is Kyra Men, and I’ve been a patient of Dr. Edwards for about 15 years now. So the treatment that I received with Dr. Edwards that made the biggest difference for me were my implants. I needed an implant. I needed a bridge. I mean, my confidence was shot because my teeth had a lot of issues. Your smile is everything. I’m an educator. I teach kids. I sing a lot, and so being nervous about what you’re going to look like on camera, it really is a thing. So I think just the implants, being able to regain that confidence, it was everything. I decided to get the bridge repair and the implants because my teeth, when he went in to try to repair them, they weren’t salvageable, and so we had to do something to replace my existing teeth. I just felt overall restored. I felt a lot more confident.
I was excited to explore the other treatments that he suggested as well. If someone is interested in a bridge repair treatment, I would say definitely choose Dr. Edwards because he takes time to make sure the small details are covered. For instance, the color of the teeth, you could tell the difference between their natural teeth and then the bridge repair. With him, that’s not the case. He takes the time to make sure that there’s a perfect color match. He maintains the integrity of the shape of the tooth, and even any of the spacing that your normal teeth would have.
My name is Lou Monville, and I have been a patient of Dr. Edwards for seven years. So the treatment that I received here that made the biggest difference in my smile is these two things right here. So those teeth got broken in high school, plain water polo, like a lot of my dental work, and I had some old crowns. They were getting to the point that they needed to be replaced, and so Dr. Edwards says it’s time to replace those. But what blew my mind was it was done in a day. I was in and out of here in less than two hours with two brand new teeth that actually looked like my teeth. My wife was blown away. The technology now and the technology that Dr. Edwards has is phenomenal. I was always kind of cautious with my smile, real up close with those kind of big false teeth, and now you can’t tell the difference.
My kids noticed the difference. My family noticed the difference. So it’s been probably one of the best things I’ve done in a long time. Well, if you’re going to have a crown treatment, why would I tell you to go see Dr. Edwards? First off, the attention to detail that was super important. Then two, just the technology, the ability to not have to walk around with a false tooth or a temporary, two crowns in and out, two hours. I’ve never experienced that in my life to have that repair look phenomenal, but to be done, when you walk out and you’ve got your smile, you can’t beat it.