So to review: A wakeboard accident cracked this tooth:
Cracked tooth
His mom was concerned about fixing the tooth and making it look ‘natural’……but I think we were really successful, don’t you??
Repaired tooth
Repaired tooth
And the final product. To look at these teeth you’d never know they originally had such large cavities. And one or both of these will end up having crowns ‘down the road’ due to the extensive damage and amount of tooth that was destroyed from the decay.
And the final product…….they came out great! But when you look at where we started, there’s NO WAY you’d have known how extensive these were.
So again, the question begs to be asked….what would you want done with YOUR front tooth if it looked like this one. It was not sensitive to hot or cold and was really just a cosmetic concern for the patient. But the proposed solution by another dentist (a porcelain crown) seemed rather extreme, so she left the tooth in this condition for weeks.
We were not able to save the natural tooth that was originally located in this position. You can see why here. Now the implant has been placed and healed, so it’s time to finish with the post and crown.
And here’s the area at only 2 months after the gum surgery. The healing is significantly better and, again, look how much of the root surface remains covered from the original photo. To review, I placed a tooth colored filling to replicate or replace the lost ‘landmark’ that differentiates between the enamel and root surface of the tooth, giving the gum specialist a ‘target’ to place his graft afterwards. This happens to be an IDEAL result.
Now, since we’ve looked at the final result, let’s look where we started.
The patient lost her front teeth many years ago and so had to get a bridge across the front. When it was constructed the dentist did not take into account the shape of her lips or smile. So this old bridge has what we call a ‘reverse smile line’. That means her front teeth don’t follow the shape of the lower lip giving a worn, older appearance to the smile. This also occurs in many people that grind their teeth.
An orthodontist asked for assistance with our mutual patient. The patient’s lateral incisors (next to the big middle teeth) were slightly undersized and he wanted them bonded FIRST to make their size ideal, then he would finish his orthodontics. This is an excellent way to get an ideal esthetic result, as described here.
The orthodontist was kind enough to take off the brackets on the front 4 teeth. Here’s how things looked:
Now take a look at the final result. This was completed with only bonding and, as I stated last time, no root canal was necessary. Both the patient and his mom were thrilled!
Same photo…but look at the ‘top’ of the tooth in the picture. Can you see the small ‘line’ that seems to touch the adjacent tooth? This tooth is cracked in multiple areas, but the only portion that broke off is at the bottom. I would bet the tooth was already fractured when it was filled with this composite (it was done before the patient came to my practice). In fact if you look at the recent posts below, you can see what this one probably looked like before the silver filling was replace.
Look here:
