Doctor James Ross on gum reshaping and gummy smile treatment
There are a number of treatments with the gummy smile, and the lasers that we have are fantastic with that. We’re able to… Sometimes there’s just some excess tissue that comes over the tooth, and we’re actually able to painlessly shape the tooth with a laser. Couple different lasers that I use to do that, and sometimes we do it in conjunction with a veneer and we do it at the same time. Sometimes we do it just by itself. Most of the time, I don’t have to put any anesthetic on the tooth. Sometimes I’ll put a little topical with a cotton tip. It’s a very easy procedure.
There are some advanced procedures that, if the person really has a gummy smile where we’re able to do some things that caused the lip to drop down to eliminate some of that gummy smile. One that we do is where we’ll put a couple units of the Botox on two areas here, and that causes that muscle, rather than contracting and holding that lip up, just to slide down a little bit so it doesn’t show as much of that gummy tissue. There are some other procedures that they can do that, actually inside the lip where some tissue is removed, and it allows it to permanently drop down.