Before (top) & after (bottom)
Difference is subtle but seriously amazing and even better than what I'd hoped!
So. I've had a teeny tiny chip in one of my front teeth for years. I don't know when or how I got it, it's just always been there. I didn't think too much about it. At one point, ten years ago, I had it filled. I was told it would fall out eventually and I'd have to keep getting it filled. Before I knew it, a decade had gone by and of course at some point it had fallen out. Who knows when or how. Around the time I had it filled, my dentist at the time mentioned how my gums come down a little too low on the teeth on either side of my two front teeth. He said we could raise it up but that scared me and I never thought about it again. My chip & my gums were never that big of a deal to me.
The last few years is when I started to do more photo shoots and see myself on film more than I ever had...and that's when I started to notice both. It looked like one tooth was longer than the other. It looked like the two with the low gums were almost circular shaped and made my overall smile look a little uneven. I decided to look into, gulp, laser gum contouring. The idea really freaked me out, and grossed me out, but I found a dentist with a good rep in town and went in for a consultation. He told me my bone was in the way, we'd never be able to raise my gums high enough to look how I want, how he would recommend veneers. This would also require a surgery from a periodontist to REMOVE BONE. Um...how about NO! He kept trying to sell me on it (no, really SELL $$$$ me on it) and told me even if we just fixed the gums it would only take me 25% to the look I wanted and I'd need those veneers.
HOLD UP. I paid my dues, braces when I was 12, I have basically good teeth, I do like my smile. I don't want to bust it all out and get veneers. Maybe some day in the FAR off future but not now. Again, $$$$ and BONE SURGERY?! No way, jose. I left feeling so dejected, that I'd never get my teeth fixed up. In fact I may or may not have cried a little. But then I started to get mad. I clearly don't need all that nonsense. He tried to swindle me!
So I got a second opinion. This guy did bring up veneers in the consultation but flat out told me how pricey it was and that laser gum and shaving/contouring the bottoms of my teeth (rather than filling in a chip that would always fall out) would definitely buy me time. That we could make them appear longer, raise them up, make them look better. So I went with the new guy. I just got home from getting all the dental work. Shaving, contouring, laser gum. Easy. Scary as hell, but much easier than I thought. And guess what? It turned out even BETTER than I thought it could. I love it. He did a fantastic job! Moral of the story, if you know what you want, DON'T let someone talk you into something else. And ALWAYS get a second opinion!!! The dentist ain't so bad, folks!
