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Originally Posted by ALLSKIING  The yellow part of the teeth in the after pic was below the gum line in the before pic. I think thats why its so yellow....Do they remove part of the gum? |
Actually why the yellow part that was below the gum pre-surgery is much yellower in appearance then the part that was pre-surgery above the gum line has more to to with what is is than where it was. Basically, before any changes in gum height occurs, either naturally, via surgery, or via the effects of gum disease, the part of your teeth that you see in your mouth are covered entirely in enamel. Once you get basically to the point on your tooth where the gum line contacts it in that original gum height position, that enamel layer stops and the tooth's outer layer is then a relatively speaking thin layer of what we call cementum. This cementum is very often much yellower to yellow/brown than the enamel, and hence the color difference you see in the photo. When people bleach their teeth it's actually that cementum, and what it covers(something we call dentin) that the bleach works on to lighten. That enamel that I mentioned before is actually very translucent and what gives a tooth the majority of it's color is the color of that cementum/dentin.
As for the do they remove the part of the gum question, well the vast majority of the time is that via a scalpel blade or more and more nowadays with a laser, gum tissue is removed. Occassional in a few very specific cases, the gum tissue will be "teased" away from the underlying bone and then repositioned to where the dentist wants it, and then be stitched to that new place to allow for healing - this tends to have a higher degree of variability about where that final gum postion will be, so we tend not to do it as much, since we hate to have to say "Mrs. Smith, well that gum didn't end up where I wanted it to, so we have to do the same gum surgery AGAIN"
