A client came to see us the other day having not been to see a dentist for over seven years! He was unhappy with the colour of his teeth, the shape of the upper front teeth, and the overlapping of his lower front teeth. This had been bothering him for sometime now and he was becoming more and more self conscious about it to the point where he was hiding his teeth when smiling.
On our initial discussion he told me he smoked about 20 cigarettes a day and love to drink red wine. Although he thought he had no problems with his teeth he felt he wanted to improve the look of them. On examination we found that he had multiple areas of decay and old mercury fillings that were also failing. After showing him close ups of his teeth he completely understood that his mouth was in a seriously neglected condition and that if we did not act immediately he would end up losing many of his teeth. After stabilising his mouth and making it disease free he then wanted to look at the aesthetics of his smile.
We scheduled his appointments and began to make his mouth healthy again. Old amalgam fillings that were failing were replaced with tooth coloured white composite fillings. This made an immediate impact on his confidence as his teeth now looked like teeth again rather than having ugly black fillings which actually weaken your teeth over time. He also had mulitple areas of decay on his upper front teeth which we again filled with white fillings. People are always suprised to hear they have active decay and cavities in the mouth as they expect their teeth to hurt but you don’t always get symptoms from where there is an underlying problem. Once your teeth start to hurt that may mean that you have a more serious condition and more complex treatment may be required to sort out the problem. That’s why its so important to visit your dentist regularly. After I had shown him the cavites with digital photographs that helped him to realise how serious the conditon of his mouth was.
His mouth is now stable, although he still smokes 20 cigarettes a day. Our next paln is to address his aesthetic concerns, which will involve freshening up his smile with tooth whitening, building and recontouring his upper front teeth with composite bonding and straightening his lower teeth. Then he’ll have something to really smile about!
Call us to see how we can help 01252 723 008
