Archive for March, 2010

How do I fix my smile after gum surgery?

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Wonderful website! I recently had gum surgery due to bone loss in both my upper & lower jaws. Now I’m concerned about the look of my teeth since my gums have been minimized by about 4 mm. The surgeon told me I could get veneers to make my smile look more natural. I also have a small gap between my two front teeth. Do you foresee any problems with this? What do you recommend?
Kara from Indiana

Kara,
Yes, porcelain veneers could help you get a beautiful smile back. But you really need to be careful. Your teeth are longer now, and for a situation like this you especially need a real artist. I would recommend that you check the cosmetic dentists recommended by mynewsmile.com. That’s a website that screens cosmetic dentists based on their training, and then they examine photographs of their work.

This is a problem with people who have serious gum disease. Even when there is no gingival surgery, the gums have often receded considerably making for longer teeth. It’s tricky to get the result to look right, but an expert cosmetic dentist will have experience in dealing with this problem and will know how to make your smile look beautiful again.

Posted in Gum Disease, Porcelain Veneers | Comments Off

After 20 years, I’m miserable with my dentures.

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

I am 62 years old. I have had complete upper and lower dentures for the last 20+ years. I am still paying for the last set I got, but they don’t function as anything but a prop to keep my face from collapsing. I can’t bite or chew with them. I pretty much have sores on my lower gums all the time. I should have bought stock in Fixodent, I use so much. Anyway, I’m sure I don’t have enough bone left for implants, much as I love the idea (and not ClearChoice – isn’t that a joke?). What can I do?
- Vicky in Colorado

Vicky,
I think that you’re going to need to do something in the way of dental implants to get anything that will hold your teeth in. From what you’re telling me, you have the basic problem with facial collapse that we warn people about. When your teeth have been missing for ten or twenty years, your body just resorbs that bone in your jaw that used to support your teeth, and you’re left with a pencil-thin lower jaw, and no upper jawbone. At that point, no set of removable dentures is going to fit, so you can’t keep them in without adhesive and you can’t chew.

So you are going to need some bone grafting. If money is a big issue, you’ll want to go with the minimum, which will be two implants and a snap-in denture. This will give you a stable denture that you’ll be able to eat with and will stay in your mouth without adhesive. If you can afford it, the more implants you use the better, and you can get away from the snaps.

Actually, if this is what you need, in your area I would recommend going down to Colorado Springs where Dr. Joseph Rota there is highly expert in these procedures. I think it would be worth the trip to get this done right. Dr. Radz in downtown Denver is an excellent cosmetic dentist, but doesn’t get into the implants work as much. I maybe could find someone closer. If that is important to you, let me know–I do have some other sources I could check.

Posted in Dental Implants, Dentures | Comments Off