Hey everyone, Brad Campbell here and welcome to Veneers Scottsdale (dot org)…
I bet you’re looking for information to help make an informed decision regarding whether or not to get veneers…
… and if so, which cosmetic dentist you should use here in Scottsdale, Arizona.
To help out, I’ll be sharing my own personal story of how I recently transformed my smile…
… as I think it’ll serve as an outstanding Scottsdale dentist resource for you.
Scottsdale Veneers
Please use the table of contents in the upper left hand corner to jump to any specific areas of interest, if you’d like.
Otherwise, I encourage you to read through this entire page to learn about my veneer experience because I’ll undoubtedly be addressing many of the questions and concerns you have.
But before I jump in… you’ll probably want to grab the exclusive 15% off coupon below…
Okay, cool… now you’re probably wondering why I made this little site, right?
Well, as the name of the website implies, the main goal is to provide you with quality information (along with my own personal experience) about getting porcelain veneers in Scottsdale, Arizona.
This is no doubt a BIG decision and when I was on the fence about getting ‘em, there was no good resource like this to help make my decision a little less stressful.
I went ahead and blindly invested in veneers, choosing the top Scottsdale cosmetic dentist I could find…
… and I figured I’d come back and create this site to share my firsthand experience with you and fill the void of lacking information from real-life patients who’ve actually gotten veneers in Scottsdale.
I think I can bring a unique perspective and touch on some of the major questions and concerns you might be having regarding such an important cosmetic dental procedure.
I was embarrassed of my teeth.
Ever since I got my braces off in junior high, things went downhill.
Firstly, my small town orthodontist tightened the braces too tight, cutting off the blood flow to one of my front teeth, eventually ‘killing’ it (or so my dentist explained). This caused it to carry a sorta grayish color.
Talk about ugly ;-)
Next, the brilliant orthodontist (can you sense my sarcasm?) only instructed me to wear my retainer for six months — and I totally obliged.
But on month seven, I stopped using it.
Another big mistake.
Over the course of the next few years, my teeth began to shift back to their previously crooked and crowded positioning. Add to that the discovery of Starbucks and a worsening caffeine addiction and you can just about guess what started happening to the color of my teeth…
So just to summarize, I had one front tooth that was slightly grayish in color… a mouth full of chompers that were now just as crooked as ever… PLUS, a gradual yellowing of all the teeth, thanks to my love of dark brown coffee and latte drinks.
As the years passed, my smile got worse and worse, and meanwhile, my self consciousness concerning my teeth continued to grow.
It got to the point where I basically refused to smile in pictures and felt paranoid when talking to people up close.
If I could only have “celebrity-like” teeth, I’d be one happy dude…
Problem was, I was too broke to do anything about it. Not to mention, I was stuck going to college in Iowa (not exactly the cosmetic dentistry capital of the world, LOL)…
It wasn’t until I graduated from pharmacy school and moved out to Arizona that I was FINALLY able to even consider doing something about my number one flaw!
That’s when I turned to good ole’ Google to start my research. I figured “veneers Scottsdale” ought to give me what I was looking for… which was, by the way, actual feedback from people who’ve gotten porcelain veneers in Scottsdale, AZ.
But despite several hours of searching, I couldn’t find much that wasn’t straight from the dental practices themselves…
Knowing Scottsdale had to be the best choice of city out here for getting something cosmetic done, I decided to suck it up and take the plunge, despite not finding the reviews I was looking for.
I went with who I assumed to be the top choice and the rest, as they say, is history…
As of just this week — and after nearly 17 long years of desperately wanting veneers — I’m now the proud owner of 12 new beautiful porcelain veneers (six on the top and six on the bottom) courtesy of Scottsdale’s finest cosmetic dentist (at least, in my book… but of course, I’m probably biased)…
To the right you can see my “after” photo that I just took with my iPhone the other day upon arriving home.
The quality isn’t stellar, but you get the idea. To me, they look amazing and I’m so unbelievably happy to have undergone this smile makeover — you have no idea…
I’d put up a “before” picture, but as I said earlier… I pretty much avoided taking any pictures that showed off my poor teeth, and therefore I don’t have anything all that great to compare it to.
Unless I can dig up something that slipped past my smile defense (haha), you’ll hafta take my word on the transformation for now.
Maybe I can convince my cosmetic dentist to give me a copy of the pic he took the very first day I went in for my consultation. If so, I’ll come back and update this post with a good “before” photo…
Anyways…
Regarding my porcelain veneer experience, I’ll address a few areas of interest I’m sure you have…
This is the first thing most people want to find out — and for good reason…
Now, as you surely already know, veneers ain’t cheap. And heck, for what it can do for your smile, your confidence and your quality of life… it makes sense that you’ve gotta pay a pretty penny to transform your smile.
The top Scottsdale cosmetic dentists will charge right around $1,200 per tooth. So yeah, it can certainly add up in a hurry. Most patients will need at least six veneers on their top. Some will need eight, or maybe even a few on the bottom of your anal like me ;-)
The cool thing is, I’ve talked to my cosmetic dentist and he agreed to offer a limited time 15% off to anyone who finds this page and signs up using the form at the top. So that’ll definitely help you save a thousand bucks or more straight away.
You’re welcome, haha…
No but in all seriousness, I would NOT recommend price shopping when it comes to a permanent cosmetic procedure like this. When I first moved out to Arizona, I saw a dentist in Chandler and she tried talking me into veneers. Her prices were much cheaper, but I could just tell from her office and things she said that she was basically a family dentist that rarely performed anything cosmetic on her patients.
If you’re gonna get dental veneers, you want ‘em to be perfect… and there’s no way I was going to gamble on the results just to save a few hundred bucks.
You shouldn’t either. If price is a major issue for you, I’d recommend just holding off and saving up until you’ve got the funds to really do it right. In the end, you’ll be glad you paid top dollar and went with a true expert who can deliver the incredible smile you’re after…
Okay, next up… if you’re like me, you’re probably at least a little concerned about how painful the process of getting veneers is…
… am I right?
Hey, don’t feel like a wimp. When I was growing up, it seemed like every trip to the dentist resulted in a tooth getting pulled (to prepare for the “braces from hell”) and I don’t know if it’s because it was a small town dentist in Iowa or what… but the guy did NOT do a good job of numbing me up, because I remember feeling everything.
And it hurt like hell!
So that series of traumatic visits to the dentist office growing up definitely made me apprehensive to have any invasive dental work done when I got older.
In fact, I’d heard that getting your teeth shaved down to prepare for the porcelain veneers was extremely painful… so that, combined with my preexisting thoughts that all dental work should hurt, came together to form a pretty significant worry in my mind that this process may be hard to deal with, from a pain standpoint.
I’m happy to say that the process didn’t hardly hurt at all. You’re probably wondering how this could be…
Well, it’s actually 100% due to the fact that the cosmetic dental office I used in Scottsdale is big on making this a totally comfortable process. They practice sedation dentistry, and even offer to put you completely out during the entire procedure.
However, neither of those options was even necessary. Instead, they numb you up with a local anesthetic quick, which then allows ‘em to take a needle and inject several shots of another local anesthetic. This was very cool because I didn’t even feel the shots going in.
From here, I was totally numb from the bottom of my nose on down to my chin. I could literally take my tongue and run it across my teeth and wasn’t able to tell if I was even touching them.
They offer to repeat the numbing process constantly throughout the process, making sure I never felt a thing. This was a great surprise, as I had prepared for the worst ;-)
You should be prepared to deal with multiple visits to the cosmetic dental office…
At the very minimum, you’re looking at an initial consultation, which will include x-rays, pics and a comprehensive assessment by the dentist. Here, you’ll discuss where you want your teeth to be when it’s all said and done.
Most likely, you’ll schedule a second appointment to take some molds of your teeth, which will then be sent to the lab to prepare your temporaries, along with your actual porcelain veneers.
A date will then be set to have your temporaries put on. This appointment generally takes at least a few hours, so you’ll need to plan your work/life schedule accordingly.
At this visit, you’ll have your original teeth shaved down slightly to make room for the temporaries (and eventually, the veneers). After the saving is complete, your temps will be carefully placed over top and some shaping techniques will take place to make them look very similar to the final product.
How long you remain in your temporaries depends on how quickly the lab finishes up the veneers, but expect this to occur no sooner than 1-2 weeks out.
And at this point — when your sparkly new porcelain veneers arrive at the dentist office — you’ll have your final visit. This one will last just as long as the last, so once again, you’ll need to set aside an afternoon to get your permanents on.
Assuming you don’t require any other preparatory work before getting your veneers (I did the Invisalign for a few months because my teeth were so crooked), you can see that a beautiful new smile can be yours in as little as 2 or 3 weeks from the time you first go in for your initial consultation…
This was a big concern for me, as at the time, I didn’t have enough free cash floating around to simply cut a check. Thankfully, my particular Scottsdale dental office offered Care Credit, which lets you finance your cosmetic dental work interest-free. I was able to put my Invisalign and porcelain veneers on here — I figured, why not, since it was interest-free.
I’m under the assumption that pretty much any dentist will have this available, however, how much you can get approved for will vary depending on your credit report, income level, and so on…
I was told that my new veneers — if well cared for — should last around 15-20 years… and that’s with absolutely NO discoloring. In fact, my cosmetic dentist said I could soak my veneers in dark black coffee for years and they wouldn’t stain at all. Pretty cool if you ask me…
Obviously, you should use some common sense here and try to avoid eating super hard foods that could potentially cause the bonding to weaken. The most likely thing to happen within that 15-20 years would be that you chip one playing a sport or something.
Other than that, with good care and a little common sense, veneers are a great long-term solution for a healthy (and functional) smile.
It’s hard to envision every single adverse event that could take place from getting porcelain veneers in Scottsdale, Arizona. But I can tell you that the main ‘potential’ negatives would be tooth sensitivity — especially for a few days following getting the temporaries and permanent veneers put on.
From my experience, this, along with minor jaw soreness (from having it open for such a long amount of time) were the only side effects I noticed. And both subsided within a few days.
My cosmetic dentist also gave a pain medication script, but I hardly used it…
As I mentioned earlier, in general YES… you can go about your life eating just the same as before. However, I know I’m going to be more cautious with things like hard candy, apples, nuts, etc. Basically, anything that’s ultra tough on my chompers, I’m going to use a knife and cut it first, then I’ll probably also have a tendency to use my back teeth (which don’t have veneers) to grind up these hard food items.
It’s now been a couple weeks since getting my permanent ones put on, and I can say that I’ve had no issues whatsoever with eating.
Essentially, there is NO maintenance. Other than your standard dental care — regular cleanings, brushing and flossing correctly, using fluoride occasionally, and so on — there isn’t anything above and beyond that to do. The only thing is that they did give me a mouth guard to wear at night, since I tend to really grind my teeth while sleeping.