Whenever you mention lengthening a crown in dentistry, it is all about taking a dental crown and making it longer. However, it can be quite confusing. This is because there are dentists, myself included, who also understand "crown" to mean your natural tooth, which is easily seen by smiling.

More specifically, it is what is visible and not inside your gums.

Crown is also used for the artificial material that partially replaces natural teeth.

It is confusing, as I said, but I hope you can now see the difference.

Gummy teeth is a common feature among some people. You may have so much gum in your mouth that your natural teeth may look small compared to the gums. Every time you smile, your teeth are dominated by your gums.

I get several people coming to my Haddon Township dental office who like to go away with a nice smile. They want to get rid of their gummy look. It could be other health-related reasons that they want to increase the length of their crowns while easing up on the gum.

The procedure to make dental crowns longer is fairly straightforward. During the process I just cut away some of your gumline to make it look as if your tooth is longer. If I'm also about to put in a porcelain crown, we may go a little into the bone. But the gum is the main thing and we try not to move beyond that.

When we give you a crown lengthening procedure in my Haddon Township dental office, we will give you a local anesthetic. When the anesthetic has taken effect, it's time to use either a laser or an alternative cutter to gradually slice away your gums from the edge.

I may also do so for the adjacent teeth. This is an effective way of not taking off too much gum from one area. This is a very important factor. I can assure you I take great care with this and my record speaks for itself. There are plenty of customers who have gone away happy.

Maybe you want a porcelain crown as well. If so, I have to do some preparation work and then put a stop-gap crown on your tooth. It takes a few weeks before you return to our office. You can then have your brand new crown, fresh from the lab, fitted on to your tooth.

Increasing crown length may be done for several reasons. If one of them is to give you a more dazzling smile, it's all over and you can go home. But you might feel you need veneers as well. You could even try my other Haddon Township cosmetic dentistry.

I'm looking forward to our meeting to seek your views on our cosmetic dentistry, near you in our Haddon Township clinic.