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TOOTH RECONTOURING
Tooth Recontouring is a Way to Change a Tooth's Shape.
Recontouring a tooth is a safe and inexpensive way of reshaping irregular teeth. Both the look and feel of individual teeth, and the appearance of your whole smile can be dramatically improved with this simple technique. Tooth recontouring is also known as enamel recontouring because the procedure is restricted to the enamel layer of the tooth. Recontouring is a viable treatment option where there is a reasonable thickness of tooth enamel available to be removed. When undertaken judiciously, this procedure will not compromise the health of your teeth.
Altering the contours of teeth is often recommended for the upper or lower front teeth. At the front of the mouth, minimal tooth reduction is able to change the proportion and alignment of specific teeth to significantly improve the uniformity and symmetry of your smile.
You may be a suitable candidate for tooth recontouring if your teeth -
- feel rough,
- are slightly chipped,
- misshapen,
- uneven, or
- out of proportion,
- have worn edges from teeth grinding,
- are too long, or
- slightly overlapped.
Inter-proximal reduction (IPR), the shaving of enamel between teeth during clear aligner therapy to help correct crowding, is also a form of tooth recontouring.
Reshaping Teeth
The process of reshaping the teeth involves slightly trimming, smoothing or polishing dental enamel to achieve minor adjustments in tooth shape and contour. Once ideal dimensions are achieved, a fluoride varnish is applied to reshaped tooth surfaces to protect and further harden newly polished enamel. This technique is minimally invasive because less than 1 mm of enamel is removed.
Tooth recontouring is undertaken in a slow and precise way to minimize the amount of enamel removed, with continual checking and rechecking of tooth shape and smile proportion throughout the procedure.
No Tooth Sensitivity
Reshaping of teeth can usually be accomplished within one appointment and does not require local anaesthetic. It should not cause sensitivity. The removal of such small amounts of enamel does not harm the tooth over the long term. Reshaping will not make the tooth more vulnerable to tooth decay or further chipping. In fact, further chipping of a tooth may be reduced because thin, weak unsupported enamel is filed away.
If a tooth has a larger chip or issue, which cannot be safely managed by recontouring, dental bonding may be a more appropriate treatment option to consider. A dental examination is needed to diagnose your condition to determine the best treatment for your teeth and whether tooth recontouring is suitable for you.
