I Have Small Lateral Incisors? (photo)

Do not worry about your smile.  Ask your orthodontist to refer you to a cosmetic dentist.  The dentist can then take impressions of your teeth, have them waxed up to ideal shape and then both the orthodonitst and your dentist have a guide -What I have done many times is to take off the braces on the small teeth, bond them to ideal shape and them send back to the orthodontist to finish.!  Good luck and congratulations on working on a great smile!

Start with your orthodontist in most cases the dentist will know about this problem before tx is started. The best option in my opinion is leave the space and when braces are complete do bonding or veneers to make the tooth the correct size and shape. Another option is squeeze the teeth together and understand the teeth will still be small but no space and bite may be off... Good Luck

 

Kevin Coughlin DMD, MBA, MAGD     CEO Baystate Dental PC

It would appear you are still early in your orthodontics.  My guess would be your final results will appear much more to your liking as you get closer to the time of removal.  As you come close to the end of your orthodontics, I would recomend seeing a good cosmetic dentist regarding your concerns (if you still have any).  There isn't much a cosmedic dentist can do while your braces are on, if he can work in conjunction with your orthodontist they should be able to come up with some great solutions to finish up your treatment.

Excellent question and concern. I hope you have already discussed this with your regular (cosmetic) dentist, as well as with the orthodontist doing the braces. Perhaps the orthodontist can make the laterals "super-erupt" to make them longer. If you are unhappy after the braces are removed, you can also consider placing Porcelain Laminates.

This is a good question.  The answer is not so easy.  Instead of saying teeth are big or small, a dentist or orthodontist should be able to quantify their sizes.  For example: The average front tooth (central incisor) is between 1/14 and 1/15 the width of the face measured from cheekbone to cheekbone.  The average lateral incisor is 0.78 times the width of the central incisor.  The average cuspid is 0.88 the width of the central incisor.  The average width to height ratio of teeth is 0.78These measurements can be found in any orthodontics textbook.  I mention these statistics because you want your teeth to be in harmony with each other and to your face.  Teeth that are within 5% of these proportions look natural and esthetic.