No Prep vs Traditional Veneers

There has been a lot of discussion in my office over the last couple of months thanks to advertising by the company marketing Lumineers. Today there are a variety of laboratories providing no or little prep veneers. Lumineers is a brand name for just one of these laboratories.

This increases awareness has been both good and bad for dentistry. The good part is the interest it is creating in patients who may have thought that there was no way to fix their smiles without extensive drilling. The bad part has been the confusion it has created in the marketplace. Let's try to fix that by explaining the difference between traditional veneers and the new no or little prep veneers.

No or little prep veneers, are basically used in certain circumstances where little or no preparation of the teeth are required in order to accomplish the patient's goals. They cannot be used in every case especially those where the teeth are exceptionally crooked and may require a great deal of preparation in order to realign the teeth into a more natural look. Additionally, in certain patients with severely stained teeth, such a tetracycline staining, No Prep veneers may just not be the correct treatment option. In order to make major color changes in these types of cases sometimes these no prep veneers may become very opaque looking and lose their natural appearance.

Additionally, it is important to understand that when Lumineers, or no-prep veneers are used, the teeth by necessity will be thicker. Normally this is not a problem but the patient should be aware of this before treatment is begun.

The benefits of no or little prep veneers are 1) as the name implies there is little if any preparation of the teeth, 2) no temporaries are needed and 3) very often no anesthesia is required. For many patients these benefits outweigh the disadvantage of a bit thicker veneers.

It is important to understand that both treatment options, prep and no prep veneers, are just tools in the hands of a dentist. There is no panacea and both treatment options should be evaluated before a final treatment decision is made.