I just had four porcelain veneers placed and while I do like them, they are much whiter than my natural teeth. The difference is pretty obvious when I smile. I think I need to whiten my natural teeth but don’t know if that will damage my brand new veneers.

Cathey

Dear Cathey,

While any teeth whitening you do will not affect your porcelain veneers, I am a bit surprised your dentist didn’t have you do the whitening beforehand.

When you have porcelain veneers done, unless you have enough veneers to cover each tooth that is visible when you smile, which is almost always more than four teeth, it is standard operating procedure to whiten the teeth ahead of time.

One of the reasons we do the whitening first is because it is much easier to match porcelain veneers to teeth than it is to match your whitening to already established porcelain veneers.

This does give me some concern about your dentist’s knowledge of cosmetic work. One thing that will be especially important is when you go in for your next cleaning that they do not use anything like a power prophy jet or acidulated fluoride on your teeth.

This will completely remove the protective glazing from the veneers which will ruin them.

Best of luck and feel free to get your teeth whitened without the worry of damaging the veneers.

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