Veneers: thin ceramic shells for the front teeth

A veneer is a wafer-thin shell of ceramic bonded to the front of an anterior tooth – comparable to a facing, not to a crown. The tooth is preserved all round; only what can be seen is changed.

What they are good for

• discolourations that cannot be bleached away – for instance after a root canal treatment or through enamel defects
• small chips at the incisal edge
• teeth that look a little too short or too narrow
• small gaps between the front teeth
• slight misalignments when orthodontic treatment is not an option

And what they are not for

If a tooth is deeply destroyed, filled over a large area or root-treated and therefore brittle, a shell no longer carries – then the Crown is the right restoration. With pronounced grinding, too, veneers are delicate: they withstand continuous loading less well than a crown. And in the posterior region they are simply not intended.

How much tooth has to give way for them

Usually a thin layer of enamel is removed so that the veneer does not build up and the margin stays inconspicuous – considerably less than for a crown, but not nothing. That layer does not come back; the decision is permanent.

With very narrow teeth or teeth standing slightly inwards it sometimes works entirely without grinding. Whether that is possible in your case is decided by the findings, not by the wish.

Costs and durability

Veneers count as a purely aesthetic measure. The statutory health insurance as a rule pays nothing for them – not even a fixed allowance, because there is no finding that makes a restoration necessary. If there is a real defect of substance, that can look different; it belongs clarified before the treatment and written into the cost plan.

Well-bonded veneers last many years. The most frequent cause of an early loss is not the ceramic but the bond at the margin – and that depends on oral hygiene.