Miraculous Dentistry
Liz wanted to improve her smile for years. To achieve her goals within her budget, we started with her upper four front teeth. In near the future, Liz would like to complete her smile makeover.

Dr. Briglia’s phased treatment plans make it possible for patients like Liz to see positive results as they work towards their ultimate goal. Whether it’s restoring dental health or enhancing your smile, our team gives you the dental care and healthy smile that you deserve.

This female college student had fractured her front tooth, when someone bumped into her while she was drinking from a glass bottle. She was very upset to say the least, and was thrilled to have her front tooth cosmetically restored. One thing to note is, that with restorations that are needed in the critical “smile zone”, it is very important to block out the dark space behind the front teeth. In the above case, we first bonded on a very thin layer of “opaque” composite resin on the very back side of this tooth.

This bonding material is the same shade as the final “top” layer of material that we used to restore this young ladies tooth, but it is non “see-through”. We use this special “opaque” resin material in the back of the tooth, to duplicate and mimic the properties of the “dentine” layer of tooth structure that is just below the surface of the shiny white “enamel” layer of a natural tooth. This dentine layer extends all the way to almost the tip or incisal edge of a tooth, and it’s opaque, and “blocks out” the darkness in the back of the mouth.

If a front composite restoration is completed with only the final cosmetic resin, without first using an opaque resin to block out the darkness in the back of the mouth, you get a poor cosmetic result. The completed “white” front filling, will always look a bit dark, and will not match the adjacent teeth on either side of the newly bonded tooth. Our patient was thrilled with her final results. I also completed a conservative, enamel recontouring of her adjacent front tooth, to help match the length of the front teeth as well.