As unfortunated as your situation is, it is not uncommon. There can be several reasons why crowns may appear to have a dark look to them. If they are truly all porcelain crowns the darkness could be from leakage of fluids up under the old crowns, or due to the underlying tooth turning dark due to some issue with the nerves within the teeth. It is also possible that although the crowns look like all porcelain crowns they may actually have a metal base underneath the procelain that could be making the crowns appear dark. I think you will need new crowns placed to repair this problem. Also you mentioned that you feel the crowns are too large. There is a way your dentist can dtermine the proper size of your front teeth using data about the ratio's of the space available for the teeth and by measuring some adjacent teeth and cross referencing these measurement agains the data. Also a dental laboratory can "wax up" some very beautiful provisional crowns to help your dentist find a size that you will feel looks life-like. These can be put on your teeth when the old crowns are removed and you can "try on" the look of these provisional crowns. If you like them your dentist can tell the laboratory to make your new ones look just like the provisional ones. The neat thing is you can wear these provisional crowns for a week or two to be sure you really like them. Lastly,,,,, about the darkness of the teeth. If it is indeed the tooth root that is becoming dark and causing the dark tinge to you teeth then there is a separate process that may help. This can be accomplished by placing a white filling material in the front part of the root that will mask the dark shade of the root. A bit complicated to explain but your dentist will know about it. Good Luck!
I can hear in you question that you are truly suffering and really want to let the happy person inside you shine without being self conscious about your smile. I see several issues about your smile that I would like to discuss with you. First is the gummy smile that I am sure is your major concern, and your teeth look very small. Secondly, I see that you have a very deep overbite ( meaning the upper front teeth come down too far over the lower front teeth). I can also see that because your teeth are inclined inward that your smile has the appearance of being narrow and doesn't look quite wide enough when you smile ( to put it another way, your molars don't fill out your cheeks when you smile). I would like to see a profile photo to get some sense of the relationship of the lower 1/3 of your face to the rest of your face. Ok, now for some good news. You can have the beautiful smile you want and deserve, and here is where you start. Interview several orthodontists and ask your friends for a good referral. This orthodontist is about to become an important member of a team whose goal is getting your smile corrected. The orthodontist will intrude (push up) your four upper front teeth so they don't hang down so far, and also widen your arches. He/she will also correct your bite along the way. After the braces have been removed find a good cosmetic dentist ( do some interviewing here also ) because you will want him/her to join your team, along with a periodontist ( gum specialist). These two additional team members are going to work together to fix the problem of your short appearing front teeth. Truth is the front teeth may not be short at all, just covered up with gum tissue and bone. These doctors will remove the excess gum and or bone ( I know this sounds scary but it is really easy from the patients perspective) and give you the proper length-width ratio of your front teeth. By the way, the proper ratio is when your teeth are taller than they are wide ( a 1 to 1.6 ratio) . Now in the event that the front teeth are a bit shorter that you like you can have veneers place on your front teeth to lengthen them, but I am betting you won't need veneers. OK... now it is your turn to go into action..... I hope you choose to give the world the gift of "your best self" and let the special person inside you reach her full potential. Good Luck
Well, it looks like your invisalign treatment is coming along nicely and your question about perfecting your smile is a great one. I am with you 100%! I wouldn't want my teeth prepared for veneers either if I had teeth like yours. Bonding is an ideal proceedure that will restore your smile to a more ideal appearance. I suggest you wait until just before you are ready to get your retainers prior to doing the bonding. Why? Because you will want to whiten your teeth before your dentist does the bonding. Then he can pick a shade of the bonding material that matches your awesome white teeth. Secondly, your dentist will need to take new impressions of your teeth after the bonding is finished so the retainers can be made to fit the new shape of your teeth. Good luck.
Whoa! Those nasty white lines! I can tell you that your orthodontist hates them almost as much as you do. Don't despair yet. There is a really cool procedure using a combination of flouride, milk protein, calcium phosphate, and few other secret ingredients. (actually the ingredients aren't secret, just so complicated that even I don't even recognize the names, let alone know how to pronounce them.) The teeth are first etched with a 35% solution of phosphoric acid, then the "paste" is put on the teeth and allowed to set for a few minutes. The entire procedure is repeated several times and the patient is allowed to go home for a week. We repeat the process as many times as necessary to get the results we want. It helps remove both white and brown stains from the teeth. Ok, you ask, what is the down side to this miraculous technique? For one....if you are allergic to milk, forget it. The other problem is it doesn't work every time. But.......when it does work it is great because it allows your dentist to fix the problem without touching your tooth with a drill, and without putting some small white filling over the white lines that will eventually stain and need replace. Here is another little secret. Your dentist loves this technique because he would really like to find a way to get rid of these lines so that you will tell all your freinds what a great person he/she is, and how he/she fixed your teeth without an injection, or drilling on your teeth. Good luck.
It is possible to close your anterior spaces and not make the teeth look too large. The process would involve veneering your lateral incisors ( the teeth on either side of your two front teeth that in your case are peg shaped) and also veneering the cuspids ( your "eye" teeth), and veneering the upper first bicuspids on both sides ( these are the teeth immediately behind your "eye" teeth.) The dentist will direct the dental lab to add extra porcelain to the front side of the bicuspids which will make them a tiny bit wider than they were originally. Because the lab has added extra porcelain on the front of the bicuspids, the dentist will need to reduce the back side of the cuspids (eye teeth) to make room for the extra porcelain. ( are you still following me?) The dentist will also direct the lab to add some extra porcelain to the front of the cuspids so that these teeth can be the correct size since the dentist needed to remove a little of the back side of these teeth and it made them a bit too narrow.. This procedure is in effect reducing the size of the space behind your peg lateral teeth. Now when the veneers are placed on the peg lateral teeth they will not appear too wide because the space was gradually reduced and shared between the other teeth that received veneers. This is a bit difficult to explain but I hope you can get the idea that it is possible and a good dental lab-dentist team can make it happen.
