WELCOME TO YOUR WESTSIDE ALBUQUERQUE GENERAL & COSMETIC DENTIST OFFICE

Thirty year old female dental patient presented for a smile analysis.  She was concerned that she did not show enough teeth, that they were yellow and that she had spaces between her front teeth.

As a cosmetic dentist, I noticed that she had very short upper teeth and very long lower teeth.  Also, she had what is called a "reverse smile line."  That is, her upper teeth followed the contour of her "upper lip" instead of her "lower lip." This "reverse curve" is obvious in that her eye teeth are longer than her front teeth!  This is generally unattractive and in being a professional model was not helping with her career.

 Her lower teeth were much too long and gave her an "aged" appearance.  She also had an unsightly crown on the upper left side and some graying silver fillings on her back teeth.

I determined that her front teeth needed to be significantly longer to give a more "youthful smile" and that her lower teeth needed to be much shorter.  Her unsightly fillings and crown needed to be replaced.  Her natural bite would be preserved in the process.

After taking measurements, I determined the ideal length of her upper front teeth.  This was partially based on an analysis of properly positioning her upper teeth to be consistent with her lower lip line.  In other words, I wanted to create a full smile following the contours of her lower lip. This is referred to as a "positive smile line."  Proper positioning of her front teeth then determines the length and size of the other teeth and creates a more youthful smile.

Since she had adequate tooth structure on all of her front teeth, porcelain veneers were recommended. This procedure requires very little "tooth preparation" or "drilling" because we are using her intact natural tooth to support a very thin porcelain veneer.

When a patient’s teeth are not too far out of alignment, a porcelain veneer can be made to be less than the thickness of one’s "fingernail."

The upper left opaque (too white) crown was to be replaced with a natural all porcelain crown to match the veneers. The silver fillings were replaced with tooth colored fillings.

The result was a completely natural, lighter, beautiful youthful smile more consistent with the real age of the patient.