In this case I will be showing you how I improved this patient’s teeth and created an overall more uniform smile.
So lets take a closer look:
The patient’s main concerns were on the right hand side of the mouth. There are a couple of discoloured dark teeth, as well as missing teeth.
One tooth can be visibly seen as missing since there is a gap there, but there is also another missing tooth, that has a bridge in place to close the gap.
A bridge is a false tooth, attached onto the teeth either side of it.
This is a great solution to replacing missing teeth, however in this case the tooth colour chosen is really bright, and in fact is matched to the teeth on the other side of the mouth. This creates a high contrast of light and dark teeth, which gives an end result that looks mismatched and unnatural.
The front two teeth are not same shape, size or colour and this lack of symmetry draws your eye to that area even more.
When you move the lips out of the way the gum line is also not right and although I like to have some areas higher than others, there needs to be symmetry.
In this case the patient decided to go for bridges as is was more in keeping with his budget an also allowed for something fixed.
- Gum disease was addressed and gum health maintained.
- Decay in some of his teeth addressed
- Broken / hopeless teeth were removed
- Waited for a couple of months to allow the gums to heal before the reconstruction phase of treatment.
So with any smile design cases, I always build the smile up to begin in a temporary material. I prefer to do this myself by hand to ensure the shape, size and angles are accounted for as per our desired end goal.
Already just by filling the gaps and getting some colour harmony, the mouth is looking so much better.
However, here is one tooth that is looking like it is flaring out as you can see below.
I like to have this tooth in particular slanting in, and if it was left untouched this one tooth would have looked odd and the eye would have been drawn to it. So what I did was flare out the same tooth on his right side slightly to create more harmony and prevent the eye being drawn to that one tooth.
- Make sure the bite is correct
- Test out the smile before final porcelain ones are fitted
- Show friends and family – get their opinion
- Make as many adjustments as needed before the final teeth are made.
In this case we didn’t need any revisions to the temporaries and these are the areas where the two bridges were to be placed.
The patient was delighted with the end result. Everything looked natural and in proportion without being obvious that work has been done to his mouth.
