Your Smile: Minor changes, big difference

You don’t have to have ‘awful teeth’ to warrant a cosmetic dentistry treatment, and you don’t need to spend a fortune to achieve that either.

In London,People often think that either a bit of tooth whitening or that they will need porcelain veneers or crowns for a complete makeover, costing thousands of pounds, will hugely improve their smile. Indeed, sometimes that is what is needed, but very often, that’s not the case.

The cause of poor smile aesthetics.

Poor dental smile aesthetics caused by gappy, crowded, misaligned or badly shaped teeth will not be improved by changing their colour.

In many cases, such as in the photographs below, the poor aesthetics are a combination of relatively minor issues. In the case presented they are:

• Poor dental hygiene/yellow plaque/ tartar showing around front teeth.
• Small gaps (‘black areas’) between the two fronts 1^st incisor and the right 1^st & 2^nd incisor teeth.
• The upper right 2^nd incisor is twisted forward and too short.
• The upper right and left canine teeth (3^rd from centre) are short and worn down flat.
• The lower front 2^nd incisor teeth (aside of needing a thorough scaling and cleaning) are slightly angled outwards (they ‘fan out’), overlapping the canines and the biting edges of all these lower front four incisors are uneven.

Treatment options.

Although no treatment (yet) has been carried out to the lower front teeth (either ‘cleaning or reshaping) colour matched quartz composite has been bonded to the surfaces of the upper front teeth to ‘correct’ those four points. This was done completely as an ‘add-on’ procedure, which means that the natural underlying healthy enamel was not drilled or damaged in any way. The treatment was completed in one appointment and the fee in this case was £825 to achieve the result obtained in the 2^nd image.

The treatment was completed in one appointment”

Although porcelain, which is far more ‘costly ‘than quartz composite, is generally considered a superior material for restorations (from both a mechanical and an aesthetic standpoint) it is not always the most appropriate one, even aside of the cost differences. When small areas of synthetic tooth enamel need to be added, it is often actually preferable to us the composite, even though the ‘longevity’ of the material is worse than composite. If the composite wears down, detaches, fractures or stains in time (and it will) it is quite easily and relatively inexpensively repairable or replaceable. The results (as seen) should last 3-5 years. The treatment remaining for the lower front teeth requires some very minor (and totally harmless) reshaping and evening up. The fee for that would be about £120.