Services
Services
We offer the following options to help you enjoy a beautiful and sustainable smile.
Correcting a Gummy Smile – Gum sculpting can easily help teeth appear more natural and dramatically help improve a smile.
Root Coverage – This helps conceal unsightly roots that result from gum recession. Gum grafts restore healthy tissue and improve appearance for a more beautiful and healthy smile.
Irregular Levels – It’s difficult to create a truly beautiful smile without a natural gum contour. This procedure can take your smile from good to great.
Ridge Augmentation – Tooth extraction can leave an unsightly ridge in the gum line that prevents artificial teeth from looking real. Ridge augmentation helps create a natural-looking smile by fixing this problem.
Treating Extraction Sites – Our surgeons use tooth extraction methods to prevent unsightly ridges for patients. This leads to a smile that you will be proud of when the tooth is replaced.
A gummy smile makes the teeth look short and not
proportionate with the patient’s face. The smile can be
greatly enhanced by sculpting the gum to make the
teeth appear more natural.
Tissue surgically
trimmed to normal
contour
Overgrowth of gum
tissue during
orthodontics
Healed tissue with
a pleasing appearance
Tissue surgically
trimmed to normal
contour
Tissue surgically
trimmed to normal
contour
Gum recession often shows the unsightly root of the
tooth. Following gum grafting, root coverage may be
desired by patients to improve appearance. A connective
tissue graft provides new attached gingiva while
covering the root surface.
Recession of canine
gum producing a
“fang-like” appearance
Complete root
coverage with
normal gum contour
Front tooth with
unsightly
root exposed
Improved
cosmetics after
root coverage
Simply put, irregular gum levels detract from an
attractive smile. Unless the gum has a natural contour,
the results with new crowns can never be satisfactory.
We may choose to change a single tooth or work on all
the upper front teeth to provide the optimal appearance.
Short lateral tooth,
with low gum
Gum made level with
adjacent teeth so normal
crown could be placed
Irregular gum
levels with short,
chipped teeth
Following gum
recontouring
and crowns
Once teeth are extracted, the bone often resorbs during
healing and leaves a gum indentation. The bridge placed
prevents the artificial tooth from looking real.
Consequently, the artificial tooth appears to be growing out
of the gum and can’t be distinguished from the natural teeth.
The surefire way to treat a ridge deficiency is to prevent it from
occurring altogether. Performing a ridge augmentation at the
time of extraction can manage the amount of bone loss.
Severe ridge defect
after extraction
Ridge augmented to
return normal shape
Deficient ridge
making
artificial tooth
look unnatural
Ridge augmented
and expanded so
artificial tooth
appears to
emerge from gum
A resorbed ridge forms once the gum heals down in the socket before the bone has time to completely reform. To prevent bone resorption after extraction, we advise the socket be filled with a material that reduces gum shrinkage and prevents gum down growth. It’s ideal to treat the problem before it occurs.