One thing people worry about when considering veneers is that they’ll have to take special care of their teeth. They might worry about having to give up certain foods to avoid chipping veneers and needing to buy expensive, specialized toothpaste to brush their teeth. But this is simply not true.
Of course, that doesn’t stop people from trying to sell you special toothpaste for your veneers, but if you look at the claims the manufacturers make, you’ll see why choosing any toothpaste healthy for your teeth will also work for veneers.
ADA Recommended Abrasiveness
One potential danger to your veneers is that toothpaste can wear them away. In particular, we might worry that toothpaste could scrape away the glossy finish that makes your veneers look natural and shiny. The gloss also protects against stains.
So it makes sense that the brand, MyntSmile stresses that it’s a low-abrasive toothpaste. Toothpaste abrasiveness is measured in what the American Dental Association (ADA) calls “relative dentin abrasiveness” or RDA. This measures how much dentin (the second layer of the tooth, and softer than enamel) gets removed by brushing with the toothpaste. The ADA requires that all toothpaste have an RDA of less than 200. However, it’s really best if you avoid toothpastes with an RDA of 80 or less. MyntSmile’s RDA is 52, which is pretty good, but it’s not that much better than other popular toothpastes that are available.
To try to make it seem like MyntSmile is much better for your veneers than other toothpastes, they compare it with a commercial toothpaste in a clinical trial. Sure, the trial shows that MyntSmile does less damage to veneers. However, what it doesn’t report is that the toothpaste they choose has an RDA of 155!. That’s an RDA that’s bad for your veneers, and likely bad for your teeth, too.
Picking a toothpaste with a reasonable RDA is recommended, but a special toothpaste is not required.
Glossy Veneers
MyntSmile also claims that its toothpaste makes your veneers look better: glossier. The problem is: they don’t offer any proof. There are several links on the site that seem to offer proof, but if you click on them, they take you to a page that has a link that promises proof, until you find yourself back at the page where you started–with no proof that MyntSmile improves the glossiness of veneers.
Brushing Your Veneers Prevents Cavities
As with all restorations, you need to protect the teeth that support them. If a tooth develops a cavity under a veneer, or if a veneered tooth gets lost, the veneer will be lost, too. So cavity prevention is critical.
MyntSmile advertises that it gives cavity prevention “up to 27% better than commercial toothpastes.” It even says there is a clinical study to back this up.
But when we follow the link to their clinical study, you can see that it compares four different treatments: no toothpaste, toothpaste with xylitol, commercial toothpaste with fluoride (Aquafresh), and “experimental xylitol dentifrice with fluoride” (presumably MyntSmile. The study did indeed show that MyntSmile reduced cavity growth by 27%, but only compared to no treatment! Aquafresh reduced cavity growth by 22%, on average, and the two toothpastes weren’t statistically different. So, despite the company’s claims, MyntSmile works about as well for cavity prevention as normal toothpaste.
Porcelain Veneers Are Easy to Care for
By all evidence, MyntSmile is a perfectly fine toothpaste. Its low abrasiveness is good, and it contains fluoride for cavity prevention, which makes it acceptable. But to try to tell people that they need to get a special, patented toothpaste for veneers is just wrong.
In the past, there were concerns about the fragility of veneers, back when they were made of true porcelain. These days, veneers are made out of advanced ceramic materials which are even stronger than natural tooth enamel (though enamel has other properties that can make up for a lack of brute strength).
Take care of your veneers as you would your natural teeth. Brush and floss normally. Don’t use your teeth as tools. Wear a mouthguard when you participate in sports (and not just contact sports!). If you are a bruxer (you clench and grind your teeth), you should wear a nightguard to protect your veneers (and your teeth).
Want to learn more about the benefits of veneers? Please call (509) 532-1111 today for an appointment with a Spokane cosmetic dentist at Collins Dentistry & Aesthetics.
