A young lady emailed me a question regarding the color of a tooth. This is a common question that we see so I wanted to share it on this post:
symptoms or concerns: My right upper front tooth is dead and has turned yellow. I don’t think bleaching will help my tooth and will likely have to have lumineers. E-mail is my preferred contact method until after 6:00 pm.
It sounds like you may have traumatized the tooth that is yellow. You are correct that bleaching will most likely not solve the problem. There are several options that may work for you. In general I do not recommend Lumineers in this situation due to the lack of vitality of this porcelain and the inability to custom shade Lumineers to get an excellent match with your natural tooth. There are several excellent options that may be used in the situation you described. Before beginning any cosmetic dentistry treatment, look at your overall smile. Are you happy with the other teeth? Do you want them whiter? If there are any other cosmetic dentistry issues that you desire, now might be the time to consider doing them. If you would like to have whiter teeth, you may consider cosmetic bleaching of your teeth (whitening teeth) prior to doing a porcelain veneer on the yellow tooth. This will allow you to make the porcelain veneer to the match the whitening teeth. If you are not totally happy with the other teeth, sometimes doing more than one porcelain veneer might be an option. Doing a single veneer is challenging as the shade needs to match perfectly. However, it can be done, in our Houston Cosmetic Dentistry office, we use a custom shading technique in which I personally paint the porcelain colors on the tooth in the mouth so that we can get that exceptional match. If you have any questions about Houston Cosmetic Dentistry or Houston Porcleain Veneers, please feel free to call our office as welcome the opportunity to answer any questions you may have, Ronald W. Konig DDS, FAGD, LVIF
