PAGING drjeff ...

[OldsnowboarderME]

 

[snoseek]

Remember the broken teeth .. well I decided to go for the complete make over dental wise.It was long overdue. Now one of my back molars will need crown lengthening. The procedure sounds pure gruesome. Is there anything I can do before or should do after to make the experience more bearable? I am not a big fan of dental pain.

Don't they plan on giving you gas and novacaine?

 

[Paul]

My advise to you....start drinking heavily.

 

[playoutside]

I had crown lengthening in Feb. I too was dreading it and thinking seriously creepy thoughts. I normally have no concerns about going to the dentist, but it was the little instructional video they showed me that made me edgy. Reality is it was pretty mindless. I think the whole procedure took about an hour. Pain was minimal. I had prescription for monster ibuprofen for 5 days, used them for less than 2 days. I'd describe the after effects as achy rather than pain. Your dentist should give you lots of info about keeping the area clean and not aggravating it while it heals. I also got some periodontal rinse that I began using several days later -- weird stuff they said not to use too long because it would stain my teeth. Used for a week and no stains! Whole thing healed fine and I am finally done screwing around with my million $ molar!

Good luck with your dental work. Don't put it off, you only get one set of teeth!!

 

[ckofer]

My only advice: don't watch Marathon Man this week.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Remember the broken teeth .. well I decided to go for the complete make over dental wise.It was long overdue. Now one of my back molars will need crown lengthening. The procedure sounds pure gruesome. Is there anything I can do before or should do after to make the experience more bearable? I am not a big fan of dental pain.

First of all why don;t you just PM him..and the back teeth don't matter...

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Novocaine without a doubt ... Gas probably not .. I have to be able to drive.

Man definitely take some Nitrous..you'll do just fine driving...lol

 

[FISTING]

Pwm?

 

[ckofer]

I'm guessing it means Pretty White Male. Probably from the m4m section of craigslist?

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Good luck gramps...

http://www.colgate.com/app/Colgate/...Proc/PeriodontalDisease/CrownLengthening.cvsp

 

[ckofer]

It's soooo worth it:

 

[tjf67]

It's soooo worth it:

Man someone need to brush there teeth more. Teeth are supposed to be white

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

It's soooo worth it:

Gross..makes me want to brush and floss even more..

 

[ALLSKIING]

Man someone need to brush there teeth more. Teeth are supposed to be white

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?

 

[drjeff]

Remember the broken teeth .. well I decided to go for the complete make over dental wise.It was long overdue. Now one of my back molars will need crown lengthening. The procedure sounds pure gruesome. Is there anything I can do before or should do after to make the experience more bearable? I am not a big fan of dental pain.

Sorry it took so long for my reply, I've been holed up at the Mohegan Sun the last few days with alot of other dentists at my state's annual dental convention.

Crown lengthening when needed(and it often is) really isn't that big a deal and the majority of time sounds like its going to be WAYYYY worse than it is in reality. The vast majority of the time I do this procedure, all that most of my patients experience is a couple of days of bruise like soreness to pressure - the kind of stuff that you MIGHT need a couple of motrin/advil for.

Don't worry about it, as long as your numb, not a big deal at all. Just don't plan on eating and super crunchy and/or hard stuff (popcorn/peanuts/potato chips) for a few days afterwards as the surgical site is healing and you'll be fine.

 

[drjeff]

Novocaine without a doubt ... Gas probably not .. I have to be able to drive.

Take the gas if you want it, the kind of gas we dentists use is completely clear of your system less than a minute after they gas is turned off.

For the "really good" you need to have an IV needle stuck in your arm

 

[drjeff]

My only advice: don't watch Marathon Man this week.

+1

 

[drjeff]

First of all why don;t you just PM him..and the back teeth don't matter...

We LOVE folks who think that back teeth don't matter, they tend to be the one's who ask us to rebuild their entire mouths a few years after the back one's go at a cost that often rivals a brand new SUV!

 

[drjeff]

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"

 

[drjeff]

Post Whore Master

That was me on this thread I could have just as easily cut and pasted all my responses into 1 post, but I needed to pad my post count!