This very distinguished looking patient presented with a very common problem. The two crowns (sometimes referred to as caps ) that were placed on his front teeth when he was much younger no longer matched the rest of the teeth in his smile. When I evaluated his situation I recognized that there are actually several issues that play a part in why his older crowns no longer matched his adjacent teeth. One reason, is the shade and color of his teeth changed over time in response to the things he ate and drank. The color and shade of the porcelain crowns, on the other hand, did not change.
Another reason for why the crowns no longer match is due to changes in the gum line as this patient matured. This resulted in exposing the edges of his crowns up near the gum line. Because the older technology required porcelain crowns to have metal underneath the porcelain, the gum-line area of the older crowns appeared darker and less life-like than the other areas of the crowns. When the gum-line receded and exposed the top of this patient’s crowns, the crowns no longer looked real, and therefore no longer matched well with the other teeth.
To resolve this problem we replaced his older crowns with new all ceramic cosmetic crowns. Advances in technology allow our laboratory to make the new crowns entirely out of porcelain. The final result looks quite natural.