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Planning and Preparing for Dental Procedures: Your Questions Answered

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Planning and Preparing for Dental Procedures: Your Questions Answered

Making decisions about your smile can be confusing. Should you have a tooth pulled or get a root canal? Should you get adult braces or stick with a retainer? Should you use at-home whitening remedies or have your teeth professionally whitened? If questions like these are keeping you up at night, you've come to the right place. I used to stress out over routine dental procedures, and as a result, I did loads of research on everything dental-related. To help others, I'm using this blog as a place to collect, review and share what I've learned through the years. I hope you can use the information here to help you plan and prepare for your next dental appointment.

Why You May Need Dental Crown Lengthening

20 April 2016
 Categories: Dentist, Blog

Crown lengthening refers to a surgical procedure through which some gum tissue is removed from your mouth so that the crowns of your teeth look longer. The cosmetic dental surgeon may also remove some bone tissue during that procedure. This article discusses some circumstances under which you may need to undergo crown lengthening.

Repair of Damaged Teeth

You may have suffered from a periodontal disease that resulted in damage to your teeth beneath the gum line. Alternatively, you may have been involved in an accident that resulted in some damage to your teeth beneath the gum line. The cosmetic dentist can only access the damaged section of the teeth by performing a crown lengthening surgical procedure.

Improving Aesthetics

You may have excess gum tissue in your mouth. There may be so much gum tissue that you appear to have very short teeth. Crown lengthening can be performed in order to remove the excess gum tissue so that you can have a better smile once more of your teeth are exposed after the surgery. In such a case, no bone tissue will be removed from your mouth because it is the gum tissue that was affecting the appearance of your teeth. The added advantage of removing excess gum tissue is that you will be less likely to suffer from periodontal diseases since there will be less gum tissue to harbour pathogens.

Installation of Dental Crowns

Your dentist may recommend that you have a dental crown placed on one of your teeth or on several teeth. Those crowns may be intended to correct the impact of some trauma that you sustained to your teeth to the extent that they became misshapen. A minimum recommended distance is usually maintained between the bottom of the crown and your gum tissue as dental crowns are placed on the teeth. This distance helps to protect your gums from being damaged once they are in contact with the dental crown. Crown lengthening surgery can help to create that needed distance between the gum and the crown that is going to be placed on your tooth or teeth.

Crown lengthening is a relatively simple procedure that is performed using local anaesthesia. The duration of the surgery is relatively short, but it varies depending on how many teeth need to have their crowns lengthened. Contact your cosmetic dentistry clinic for further advice in case you feel crown lengthening would be beneficial to you. The dentist will assess your condition and advise you on the most appropriate procedure to address your dental concern.