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Your gum tissues (gingiva) are often overlooked as a key element of a healthy smile. When your gum tissues are properly contoured around each tooth, it sets you up for success against unwanted decay and tooth loss. Healthy gums also make our smiles look more attractive, as symmetry and a lack of inflammation reflect both beauty and wellness.

Why Crown Lengthening?

Sometimes our gingiva isn’t contoured symmetrically around our teeth. Or there may be an atypical area with an at-risk tooth that you have to pay more attention to cleaning each day. Depending on the factors involved, crown lengthening — sometimes referred to as gum recontouring — can be an extremely useful tool.

What Crown Lengthening Does

During a crown lengthening procedure, our doctors at PCE are slightly adjusting the gums to reduce their height, exposing a fuller tooth surface in its place. There are also types of therapies that do the opposite, adding to the gingiva and raising your gum lines around the teeth. Such as when there’s trauma or some type of gum recession that needs attention.

Crown lengthening/exposure allows us to access part of the tooth that’s otherwise covered with gingiva. This scenario may be essential if you need to restore the tooth with a crown, but the tooth is too worn or short. There are other instances where our doctors at PCE perform crown lengthening as a form of pocket reduction for better oral hygiene. When the pocket around your tooth root is shallower, it’s easier to efficiently clean it each day, thus preventing relapse in gum disease. Lengthening the crown makes it safer both structurally as well as for your gums, since the crown will extend far enough and still be accessible for cleaning.

Reasons to Choose Crown Exposure Treatment

Your Teeth Look “Short” — A “gummy” smile or short-looking teeth may not necessarily be due to your tooth size. Rather, an excess of gum tissues or gum height may be to blame. Our doctors at PCE can safely reduce the edges of the gum margin to reveal fuller-looking teeth and a balanced smile.

The Pockets are too Deep to Clean — Excessive periodontal pocketing is physically impossible to clean on your own each day. If we’re trying our best to retain teeth and avoid an extraction, it may be better to remove a small amount of gum tissue to physically shorten the pocket in that location.

You Need a Crown — Fully intact teeth can typically have crowns placed on them no problem. But if there’s aggressive wear, breakage, or something that generally shortens the height of the tooth, there won’t be enough of a “base” to hold the crown in place. Lengthening the tooth provides the support a crown will need.

Gum Tissue Therapy and Recontouring | The Woodlands

Our periodontist in The woodlands is one of the most sought-after gum therapy experts in The Woodlands and surrounding communities. His incorporation of cutting-edge therapy and years of experience make our office an excellent choice for your soft tissue treatment needs.

Contact us today to reserve an exam and crown lengthening consultation.