Gwen’s Story

I Missed My Old Smile, Until I Got It Back!

Gwen has always been a cheerful person with a ready smile, but for a sad stretch of time she was too self-conscious to let others see her teeth. “I couldn’t smile,” she recalled, “or if I did and someone saw it, I was embarrassed.” Gum disease had caused several of her teeth to loosen and one of her front teeth to require extraction. She opted for bridgework to replace the missing tooth. Unfortunately, this only added to her dental woes. To support the bridgework, five healthy teeth surrounding her missing tooth were filed down and capped; the caps (crowns) were attached to a false tooth that filled the gap in the front of her mouth. “I was never really happy with it,” Gwen said of the bridge. “The teeth were just too big.” Besides creating cosmetic problems, Gwen’s bridgework also weakened the five teeth that served as supports, causing them to decay. Eating became more problematic. “I couldn’t bite into a pizza and pull,” Gwen said. “I had to cut everything up with a fork and knife.”