Hi, it’s Dr Michael Ghobrial here from Sure Dental. A couple of months ago, I saw a patient who lives here in Wavell Heights, Claire, who had some resin veneers done a couple of years ago.
And she came to see me because she wasn’t happy with the results. And when we sat down and we got talking and we took some photos and had a look at her smile, what we realised is that whilst there were issues with her veneers and how they were done, the biggest thing that she was unhappy with was her gummy smile.
And the reason why her teeth still looked too short were because of the position of the gums. And she asked me the question. Well, what can I do about it? How do I deal with my gummy smile?
It’s a great question, we see quite a few patients with the same concern. So I thought I would record this video to give you an idea on what you can do if you too have a gummy smile.
So the first thing you can do is obviously get it assessed and have a look as to why we have a gummy smile. So there’s two main reasons you can have a gummy smile.
- Your upper lip is overactive and sometimes a bit thin. And so it can really move up really high and show that big gummy ridge and show too much gum display there. In these cases often the teeth look great, and there is nothing wrong with the length of the teeth. And if that’s the case, sometimes one way you can deal with it is actually by deactivating the over movement of the lip. This can be done using muscle relaxants. Something like Botox in the right position can actually stop the lip from lifting up quite as high, and often that can give some really nice results.
- But the other common reason for a gummy smile is actually the gum position of the teeth. The gums can be too far down, or it can be as a result of the teeth being pushed in or out of position. If the gummy smile is due to the teeth being out of position, often the best way to solve that is to put the teeth back into a better position to allow the gums to remould and position themselves in the right place. And we do that often with things like Invisalign or braces.
- If the gums are down too far and it’s making the teeth look too short, often times we can get away with what we call a gum lift, where we actually lift the level of the gums to expose more tooth structure, to make the teeth look a more proportional length and size, and put the gums in the right place, which is what Claire is going ahead with. We’re going to place the gums in the correct position, so she’s got the correct amount of display and her teeth proportions are going to look much better. And once that has happened, we will actually go in and re-do and fix those veneers and give her a smile that she will love.
So if you’re concerned about your gummy smile, we would love to look after you.
Simply complete the form on our website at www.suredental.com.au, give us a call on 07 3113 9698, or direct message us via sms or social media, and our friendly team will be in touch to help you organise your consultation. See you in the next video.
