Speciality: surgery, implantology, periodontology and prosthetics
A patient came to our clinic complaining about the unattractive appearance of her teeth. The teeth had previously been root-canal treated, had changed colour near the necks and were of different sizes. She also wanted her front teeth to be slightly larger, to get rid of her gummy smile (when both the teeth and the gums are visible in a smile). The lower teeth had also been restored earlier, and some fillings had changed colour.
We suggested making and placing veneers (thin ceramic laminates on the teeth) or covering the front teeth with ceramic crowns. However, this option was not suitable for the patient due to a limited budget.
To keep costs down, we suggested a direct restoration with the filling material Asteria (Japan) and forming a symmetrical gingival zenith (pink aesthetics).
At first, the patient wanted to lengthen the teeth along the incisal edge, but we suggested a gum correction with a diode laser: the space this created let us enlarge the teeth and align the front teeth along the incisal edge. This is how we removed the gummy smile.
The gum correction with the diode laser was performed under local anaesthesia; the gum edge was trimmed by 1.5 mm. The gums healed within 4 days, after which we restored 8 upper and 8 lower teeth.
The patient chose tooth shade A1 with a translucent incisal edge. To build up the front teeth, we used 6 shades of the filling material. The restoration of the front teeth took 4 hours.
The photos of the result were taken immediately after the restoration with the filling material:
