I had eight veneer crowns placed on my upper teeth. Since then three of them have given me problems. He adjusted them a few times and then an abscess developed on the teeth. He said there was nerve damage and the teeth now needed root canals. I was told there hardly any risks to getting a smile makeover. Will all of them eventually need root canals? Is this normal? Even though my dentist has agreed to pay half of the cost of the root canals, this is quite a financial burden to me. I don’t know what happened. My nerves were fine before the procedure.
Caitlyn
Dear Caitlyn,
No, this isn’t normal. At least, it isn’t normal for porcelain veneers. However, I want to make sure that is actually what you received. The term you used was veneer crowns. Dentists will either place porcelain veneers or dental crowns. These are two very different procedures with a difference in how the teeth are prepared.
Teeth prepped for porcelain veneers
When your teeth are prepped for porcelain veneers, there is hardly any tooth structure removed, maybe 1/2 a millimeter. In some cases no structure has to be removed, but this isn’t very common. Because of how little is removed, there is rarely any nerve damage at all. Some teeth have decay or fillings that need to be dealt with which could require the dentist to go deeper. However, you indicated this was done as a smile makeover and didn’t indicate any special circumstances.
Tooth preparation for dental crowns
On the other hand, the preparation necessary for dental crowns is much deeper. This is because the crowns surround the teeth completely and are usually much deeper, thereby having a greater risk of irritation to the nerves as well as pulp exposure.
Because of this, whenever someone is getting a smile makeover, dentists will place porcelain veneers instead of crowns whenever possible. There can be a problem when you use a dentist who doesn’t know how to place veneers, they will sometimes resort to crowns, which they learned how to do in dental school. Porcelain veneers are taught in a post-doctoral setting so a dentist has to intentionally seek out how to learn them.
I think your dentist senses this shouldn’t have happened and that is why he is offering to pay half the cost of the root canal treatments. I would press him to pay the whole thing. There was obviously some aggressive treatment here or this wouldn’t be happening.
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