Quote:
Originally posted by pappymojo
First of all, thanks for taking the time with these.
I posted this question in the ask an ortho thread, but I'm not sure if that's the right place. OK. Here goes:
When I smile, my upper lip rides up revealing a lot of my gum line. It's not that bad, and I'm not a seriously vain person, but I am aware of it. I still smile all the time, but I would love to do something about it. In worse cases, it's been called horse mouth. It's not that bad, but like I said, I am aware of it.
Anyways, I have noticed that if I have something in between my upper lip and my gums (as if I were dipping), my lip doesn't ride up when I smile. I don't dip though. Sometimes I will use a piece of gum.
My question is, do you know of any devices that are made specificaly to deal with this problem. Ideally I would like a soft plastic or was mold that I could slip in and out but that wouldn't move around too much.
Any ideas? Thanks again.
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I agree with what the ortho in the other thread said about this but I'll just add that depending on your situation, it may be advisable to have "crown lengthening", where some gum tissue and bone is removed elongating your teeth and making your smile less gummy. Of course, if your teeth are already on the long side, it won't look nice to do this but it's something to get an opinion on. This is often done in coordination with veneers.
In an extreme situation where you have excess vertical growth of your upper jaw, maxillofacial surgery (where a horizontal portion of your jaw bone is removed) would be the ideal treatment.