I am toward the end of my orthodontic treatment. While my teeth look straight, I have noticed the edges are jagged. I am hoping to fix this. After spending all this money to get straight teeth, I don’t want this one little thing to bother me. Is there a way to fix it?

Ellie

Dear Ellie,

I’m glad you wrote. There is a procedure known as dental contouring that can solve your issue.  If the problem is minor, your orthodontist should smooth this out as a part of completing your case. If it is more substantial, I would invest in having an expert cosmetic dentist do this. Cosmetic contouring is a fairly advanced procedure and requires a cosmetic dentist that is not only technologically skilled, but artistic as well.

This type of procedure has to be done freehand. It is not something your average family dentist could do. In your place, to ensure you get a good result, you will need to check out the dentist’s smile galleries to make sure they get beautiful results with a variety of different cosmetic procedures. You could start by looking on the mynewsmile.com website to see if there are any dentists in your area they recommend. These dentists have already been prescreened for their training, technical skill, and artistry.

Often you will need some dental bonding done with the contouring. If you look at the before and after images above, you can tell right away that the sides of some of his teeth had bonding material added to them. You can also see that the teeth have varying opacities throughout the lengths of the teeth making them look completely natural and blending them seamlessly with the remainder of the teeth.

You won’t get this type of result with any dentist.

This blog is brought to you by Philadelphia Cosmetic Dentist Dr. Michael Weiss.