For those of you involved in the dental industry, here’s a quick story. I had been purchasing my dental supplies for years and years from one of the ‘big’ dental supply companies. I really liked my dental rep, but the company basically treated my like dirt. Anyway, along comes Synergy Dental. They’re a group purchasing organization that has gotten special pricing from Darby Dental Supply, Brasseler USA, Orascoptic, and others. Anyway, I’ve already saved a bunch of money just by ordering the SAME supplies through them. You really should check it out.
And FYI, I have NO financial interest in the company at all.
And here’s the other side, with a much smaller original-sized tooth, and the bonding afterwards:
Small lateral incisor before bonding
Small lateral after bonding
So the photo in the post below shows a ‘peg’ lateral that is very small proportionally compared to the other teeth around it. Knowing this, the orthodontist and I discussed our options. We could do one of two possible treatments. Both would lead to my eventual bonding of the tooth, or in this case, BOTH laterals, to increase the size and correct the proportion between all of this young lady’s teeth.
Your discussion should revolve around the ultimate goal for these teeth. If the size discrepancy is small, then everyone may agree to simply close the spaces during the orthodontic treatment. However, many times the size difference is too great to do this:
Many, many people have teeth that are undersized, or too small, compared to their other teeth. Often these are the lateral incisors. When they are very small they are often called ‘Peg’ laterals. If these are found in a child you should have a frank discussion with your dentist and orthodontist about the ultimate plan for these teeth. Here’s an example of this:
Ok. Just a little bit into the tooth and you can already tell there’s a more going on inside than you could originally see.
Hidden cavity
Just saw this patient and thought we’d take photos of the procedure because I could see a ’shadow’ in the tooth, but absolutely nothing on her x-ray. Having done many teeth similarly, I thought this would be a good teaching case. Here’s a photo of the tooth before we started:
Tooth with cavity
On a recent visit to get her teeth cleaned I asked this pretty patient if she’s lost weight. Yes she had!! And she was VERY proud of that fact! So I suggested we update her portrait photo that we had taken after we fixed her front teeth, and she readily agreed. Her teeth look absolutely amazing, and she takes a great photo, too!
Portrait photo
This tooth has been fractured for MANY years. The patient never really did anything about it, but with a bit more of it breaking recently, she wanted me to ’smooth it out’. I thought the better idea was to replace the missing tooth structure.
Broken tooth
So this piece of a crown was broken, and we needed to get the patient fixed up as quickly as possible.
Broken porcelain
The solution? We quickly re-bonded the piece back into place.
Bonding broken porcelain
