New Bridge Enhances New Smile

Elizabeth’s smile before

Elizabeth had just moved to Colorado from Florida and was ready for a new smile to go with her new start. Friends had recommended she see Dr. Adler of Adler Cosmetic & Family Dentistry. Elizabeth felt that her smile didn’t look good and wasn’t happy with how some of her restorations were looking. She had a Maryland bridge on her upper left front teeth to replace tooth #10 for about 8 or 9 years. She also had a very small lateral incisor, #7, that had been “built-up” to give it a larger appearance.

Maryland bridges are a slightly different design than traditional bridges. Traditional bridges have crowns on the two teeth adjacent to the missing tooth and are fused to a pontic crown which replaces the missing tooth. A Maryland bridge has a pontic fused to a crown on one side and a rest that attaches to the tooth on the other side. Maryland bridges can cause undue stress on the crowned tooth since it is taking the load of two teeth where as a traditional bridge distributes that pressure between two or more teeth. Since anterior teeth have a single root then it is important to have the load distributed among more teeth to insure that the root of the tooth is not reabsorbed because of the undue stress. Elizabeth wanted to replace her bridge and make the small incisor that was built up also look better. Most of all she wanted her whole smile to look good and balanced. She was tired of her smile looking pieced together. Dr. Adler recommended that she replace her Maryland bridge with an all porcelain bridge and also place porcelain restorations on five of her remaining upper anterior teeth to insure that her smile would be symmetrical and look amazing.

Elizabeth first whitened her teeth with the ZOOM! Whitening system so that her lower teeth would be as white at her new upper teeth would be. During the Zoom whitening procedure, all of her gum tissue was isolated to keep it from getting exposed to the whitening solution and activating light. The whitening solution and Zoom light were applied in four 15 minute sessions. Elizabeth was dramatically whiter by the end of the Zoom treatment.

Elizabeth’s great new smile

Eight of Elizabeth’s upper anterior teeth were prepped for the restorations including the bridge. Once the teeth had been properly shaped for the restorations, temporary crowns and bridge were placed. The temporaries looked almost as good as the crowns would and better than what she had had before. The impressions of the prepped teeth were sent to the lab for fabrication. Each restoration is custom made to insure that the overall smile is symmetrical, functional and aesthetically appealing. Once the crowns and bridge were back from the lab the temporaries were removed and the crowns were chemically bonded to the teeth to insure the strength and longevity of the restorations.

The results are dramatic. Elizabeth looks like a new woman with her great new smile.

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