You may not be fully satisfied with your smile or are looking for ways to improve the aesthetics of it. Smile is a complex, yet beautiful phenomenon. Different factors are involved in the smile; teeth color and shape, amount of gum covering your teeth, amount of lip muscle movement and jaw size. A gummy smile is a familiar condition to us. During your consultation, you will be assessed thoroughly and will be given information about your current status, treatment options, and prognosis. Dr. Ash provides the following aesthetic services:
Esthetic Crown Lengthening
During the eruption phase of permanent dentition, teeth may not erupt completely out of the gingiva and may look shorter than they really are. It is because the tooth structure is underneath the gingiva. In some other cases, the height of the tooth needs to be increased to reach an aesthetic harmony with other facial structures. Esthetic crown lengthening is the procedure that exposes more tooth structure. You may or may not receive veneers afterwar 6 weeks of healing by your restorative dentist. Hollywood celebrity smiles are simply achieved this way.
Lip Repositioning
Teeth may be normal in size, but you may have hyperactive lip muscles and lip pulls up too high, which results in showing too much gingiva (gummy smile). Lip repositioning is a minor plastic surgery where the inside of the lip is attached closer to the tops of the teeth. It reduces the movable mucosa, thus limits your lip movement during smiling. This procedure is simple, yet effective and patients will be very satisfied with the results. However, you have to note that results may relapse in some cases due to strong muscles. Also, limitation in lip movement during a smile will be something new for you, which takes time to get used to.
Gingival Depigmentation
Gingival pigmentation can physiologically happen in many individuals, or get acquired. Melanin content in the gingiva is higher than pink gingiva. Using Lasers, gingival depigmentation can be done, as the melanin has high absorption rate by the laser wavelength. A possible recurrence rate of 1% has been reported.
*Pictures : Dr Ash, Chambrone et al. 2015