Solving Common Smile Problems: Aged Smile and Inverted Smile

Aged Smile

There is probably the most frequent problem reported by patients. They often complain that their teeth no longer have the appearance they did when they were younger – that they seem to be worn and discolored. They want their teeth revitalized to give their smile a more youthful appearance.

Solution: Just as people can get a more youthful appearance by having plastic surgeon give them a facelift, so they can get a more youthful smile by having a dentist give them a smile lift. The dentist will add length to their worn teeth with crowns, veneers, or bonding, thus recovering the curved smile of the patient’s youth. The color of the teeth can easily be changed to a more natural, whiter look. Smile lifts usually involve, at a minimum, the social sox – the maxillary anterior teeth – but can in fact involve all of the upper teeth or even all of the teeth.

Inverted Smile

This, after the aged smile, is the second most common smile problem. The cause of the problem is not easily identified by the patient. The problem any not be the result of aging of the smile. The teeth may in face not be worn but, for various reasons, have either shifted or drifted, causing the smiles in question to go down, rather than up, at the corners.

The problem is that their upper molars are longer than their front teeth. In a normal smile, the upper lip lifts, creating convexity. In the case of people with inverted smiles, the silhouette of their smile is inverted.

Solution: The mission here is to revert the smile. This is done by various combinations of shortening the upper molars, lengthening the other upper teeth, and building up the lower molars, using crowns or veneers to support the bite change.

Edward S. Philips, D.D.S.