What is bonding and how is it different from a veneer?

Bonding is a process in which your tooth is micro roughened and all decay is removed. This roughening gives your dentist freshly cut enamel and/or dentin to bond to.

After your tooth is prepared your Charleston Cosmetic Dentist will use an acid-based etching material to further facilitate bonding by opening the surface tubules on your tooth so the bonding agent can penetrate in and chemically and mechanically lock it to the tooth's rods and/or tubules. Next a bonding agent will be used to create an interface between the composite filling material and your now opened tooth tubules. This bonding agent is then cured to a less viscous state which then is primed to bond composite to.

Dental composite of the appropriate shade is then placed in approximate shape and size and cured to serve as a basic form for your cosmetic dentist to shape and polish to match your contra-lateral tooth for maximum aesthetic symmetry.

Veneers can be made of composite and built-up in the same way as a tooth-colored filling but typically veneers will be fabricated outside of the mouth in a dental laboratory for maximum aesthetics, strength and fit. Veneers are usually made of porcelain and then bonded to you tooth using a special dental cement engineered specifically for maximum durability in the tumultuous oral environment. As opposed to composite, which has somewhat of a dull satin-like finish, porcelain has a very shiny and translucent finish which much more closely approximates the look of the natural enamel which the veneer is replacing.

It is important to note that porcelain veneers should not be bonded to dentin as this bond is much weaker and the risk of them coming unattached is far greater. Therefore in cases where the enamel will be completely removed either partially or in its' entirety veneers are not recommended. Sometimes in these cases crowns are a better option because of their far greater longevity when bonded to dentin. Crowns also have mechanical retention derived from the parallelism of the opposing walls of the dentist's crown preparation and this effectively serves to counteract that weaker bond of porcelain to dentin.



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