Front teeth that have gotten shorter, corners that keep chipping, edges you can almost see through. If that’s your smile, you’ve probably wondered what fixing it would actually take. The honest answer is that it depends on two things: how much tooth is gone, and what your back teeth are doing.
Why teeth wear in the first place is its own question, and it has its own article. This one is about what we do once they have.
The short answer: if the front teeth aren’t worn much, bonding or veneers can rebuild them. Bonding is usually the answer for worn edges and chipped corners. When the front teeth have worn but the back teeth haven’t, there often isn’t room to add the length back, so we move the teeth first with Invisalign and then place veneers or crowns. Either way, the plan is built on a model before anything is done to your teeth, and you wear provisional teeth made from that plan while the final ones are made.
First, how much is gone
When the wear is mild, the fix can be small. A little material added to an edge, or a set of veneers, can bring back the length and shape without touching the rest of your bite.
When the wear is significant, the question changes. It isn’t just how to make these teeth longer. It’s whether there’s room to make them longer, and whether whatever wore them down is still at work. That’s the part a quick repair skips, and it’s why people end up having the same front teeth bonded three times.
Bonding: for worn edges and chipped corners
Bonding is tooth-colored material added to the tooth and shaped by hand. Nothing is cut away, which makes it the conservative option and often the right one for worn biting edges and chipped corners. It can usually be done in a single visit. It stains and chips sooner than porcelain, but it can be repaired and added to in the chair.
J.C. is a good example. She wanted a better smile, but conservatively. Invisalign moved her teeth into position first, and then bonding on the edges of her four front teeth finished it, with no tooth structure removed. See J.C.’s case.
Veneers: when it’s more than an edge
When the change you want is bigger than an edge, in length, shape or color, porcelain veneers are usually the better tool. Porcelain keeps its color and shine longer than bonding, and in a review of 13 studies about 89% of porcelain and glass-ceramic veneers were still in place after a median of nine years. They do take a little tooth structure to make room for the porcelain. How we plan and make veneers.
Morimoto S, Albanesi RB, Sesma N, Agra CM, Braga MM. Main clinical outcomes of feldspathic porcelain and glass-ceramic laminate veneers: a systematic review and meta-analysis of survival and complication rates. Int J Prosthodont. 2016;29(1):38-49.
When the front teeth are worn but the back teeth aren’t
This is the situation people don’t expect. Worn front teeth don’t just sit there shorter. As they wear, they erupt, slowly moving further out to stay in contact with the teeth they bite against, so the space where the missing tooth used to be gets used up. If your back teeth haven’t worn, simply making the front teeth longer would make them hit too hard, or would mean changing your whole bite to make room.
Often there’s a simpler way. Invisalign can move the front teeth into a position where there’s room to build them back, and then veneers or crowns restore the length and shape.
That’s what we did for D.E., who was in his sixties. His front teeth had gotten noticeably shorter, worn down unevenly by his bite. We used Invisalign to move them first, and then six crowns restored the worn front teeth. See D.E.’s case.
When the back teeth have worn as well, it’s a different and bigger job, because the whole bite has lost height. That’s covered on our full mouth reconstruction page.
The plan comes first: a diagnostic wax-up
For a worn smile, I don’t start by shaping teeth. I start with a diagnostic wax-up. The lab builds your new front teeth in wax on a model of your own, with the length and shape we’re aiming for.
Think of it as a set of house plans. You’d never let anyone start framing a house without them, and the wax-up does the same job: it shows what the finished teeth will look like, how long they’ll be, and how they’ll meet the teeth below, before anything is done to your mouth. It’s the time to tell us what you’d like changed.
What you look like in between
This is the question I hear most, and the answer is better than people expect. From the wax-up, we make provisional restorations, and you wear them during the time the final restorations are being made. You don’t walk around with prepared teeth.
The provisionals do more than fill the gap. They’re a trial run of the new length and shape. You see them in the mirror, you talk and eat with them, and if something looks or feels wrong, we change it before anything is permanent.
Keeping it from wearing again
New teeth placed into the same conditions that wore down the old ones will wear the same way. So before anything is rebuilt, we look for the cause: acid from drinks or reflux, grinding, or both. The three ways teeth wear, and what each looks like.
I don’t usually make a night guard afterward. If we moved your teeth with Invisalign first, you’ll wear a retainer to hold them where we put them, and that’s an important part of keeping the result.
How long it takes
- Bonding worn edges or chipped corners: often a single visit.
- Veneers: at least two visits, and usually two to four.
- Moving the teeth first: Invisalign takes months, and the veneers or crowns follow once the teeth are where they need to be. How long depends on how far they have to move.
We’ll map out the sequence before anything starts, so you know the order, the timing and the cost up front.
Where to start
If your front teeth have gotten shorter, keep chipping, or look see-through at the edges, call 702-734-0776. We’ll look at how much is gone, what your back teeth are doing, and what’s causing the wear, and tell you whether it’s a bonding visit or a bigger plan.
General education, and not a substitute for an exam.