Joy

A common scenario for a patient is that he or she may have had many large fillings placed on their front teeth to take care of decay that was present. A few years later larger fillings are placed because of recurring decay. Often times the fillings become so large that a stronger crown must be placed. The problem is that all too often there is not a discussion of how the whole smile looks and the patient is only told to repair the one tooth. Now the patient is stuck with the color of that tooth and subsequent treatment is always that same undesirable color. Eventually this “patch-up” type of dentistry creates a very undesirable smile.

When Joy got to this point she asked what we could do and I told her, “We need to work on however many teeth it takes to make your smile look good. Sometimes that’s one tooth; sometimes it’s twenty-eight. Smile for me and it should be pretty easy to see.” Joy’s new smile required working on 12 upper teeth and no treatment to her bottom teeth.