Alexandrina came to us with one main request. She didn’t like her old bonding, which, in her words, was ugly. Furthermore, she was worried that it trapped a lot of food, which was why her gums were constantly very inflamed, bleeding and painful. Her aim was to have a beautiful smile.
The main problems we identified, apart from the bonding which was causing these issues, were the position of her upper teeth. They were flared outwards, which made them look protruding and large, and detracted from the aesthetics of her smile. This was due to the fact that her lower jaw was larger. The lower front teeth had become crowded, pushing the upper teeth outwards as they grew.
The treatment plan was to treat the gums for periodontitis, to align the lower and upper teeth as much as possible without having to extract any teeth for the purposes of aesthetic smile restoration, which would ultimately allow us to fit veneers. The decision to use zirconia veneers was due to the gum inflammation and the difficulty in cleaning the old bonding material.
We began with a periodontal (subgingival) cleaning to remove tartar and plaque.
The alignment phase was carried out using Clear V Smile aligners on the upper and lower jaws, with IPR (known as stripping or micro-reduction of the sides of the teeth). This allowed us to create space for the alignment of these large teeth. The tooth alignment phase concluded with the fitting of a wire retainer on the lower jaw and a vacuum retainer on the upper jaw.
An aesthetic model was created to finalise the look of the smile, and we fabricated zirconia veneers in partnership with our colleagues at the Digital Smile dental laboratory.
In this way, we were able to restore Alexandrina’s happiness and smile.
