Do you feel like covering your mouth while smiling and don’t want others to see your gummy smile? Cheer up!! Visit your dentist and get an instant relief to your problem and show off your beautiful smile in minutes. And that too without any pain. The procedure is gum recontouring or gum shaping. In west London, this procedure is now available in almost all the cosmetic dental clinics. Gum shaping is generally done to correct gummy smile. Here the teeth might be perfect the only distraction would be the excessive gum revealed during smile, which makes the smile less attractive. This makes the person feel less confident. In gum reshaping, the dentist will correct your gumline to an aesthetically symmetric position by gum lifting. Generally, the gum margins should be about 3 mm from the bones and the gum lines of all the teeth should have proper symmetric appearance. The lateral incisors should have a little lower gumline than their neighbours, of about 1 mm. During your visit to your dentist, he will evaluate the condition and plan the course of treatment. He might suggest a gum lifting or maybe, gum recontouring. This is done by sculpturing the gingival line using laser. This procedure takes about 15 to 20 minutes to complete and generally is pain-free giving you an instant solution to your gummy smile. This procedure is also useful for people with unhealthy gums and those having gingivitis. During this procedure, a small amount of gum tissue is removed to expose the teeth to make it look a little longer. Before the procedure, your dentist may apply a gel or use a local anaesthetic to numb your gums. Then using a beam of light, your gum is sculptured by removing a small amount of gum tissue. Here there is no bleeding and hence, no need of any stitches as the blood vessels are closed immediately with laser. After the procedure, there may be a slight inflammation of the gum tissue for a few days, which can be relieved by over-the-counter medication. Sometimes your bone may also need to be reduced along with the gum tissue to get the desired perfection. Otherwise, the gumline could regrow to its original position. As the procedure uses laser, general surgical complications such as wound infection, bleeding, etc. are avoided as the laser kills germs and sterilises the area and closes the blood vessels enhancing faster wound healing. After this procedure, there may be slight tenderness for a few days, which resolves with over-the-counter pain medication.
