I’ve just finished my braces and am starting my retainer. My orthodontist ended up shaving off about 2mm of space on the teeth. This ended up creating a black triangle at the gums. Will this go away or will I need to have another procedure done? Would grafting gum tissue to the space fix it?
Emma
Dear Emma,
My guess would be your orthodontist is planning on fixing this by closing the space and just has it this way at the start of your retainer treatment. The first thing I would do is talk to him about it. If he doesn’t plan on doing anything about it and the gums don’t adjust when you’re done wearing a retainer, then you’ll need to take steps.
Gum grafting won’t be a useful procedure for you in this case. Your gums position themselves based on both the positions and shapes of your teeth. Even if you grafted gum tissue there, it would shift to a position based on the teeth in the area.
If your dentist doesn’t close this space and it bothers you, the procedure to fix it would be dental bonding. However, you don’t want to have just any dentist do this. It’s a tricky procedure to get right. You’ll need an expert cosmetic dentist to work on this.
One thing to be aware of with braces is to make sure you’re really getting in there when you brush your teeth. The areas surrounding the brackets gather bacteria. If you aren’t super careful, you’ll end up with white spots on your teeth. You haven’t mentioned this as an issue for you. I’m only bringing it up for the benefit of others who may still be wearing braces.
The Modern Alternative to Braces
These days, there are been tremendous advancements in orthodontics. The best of these advancements is Invisalign. These are sometimes called invisible braces because they use clear aligners to straighten your teeth instead of metal wires and brackets. They are completely invisible even at a conversational distance.
They have another, mostly unknown, benefit as well. The aligners can also double as teeth whitening trays. This will allow you to straighten and whiten your teeth at the same time.
This blog is brought to you by Tulsa Dentist Dr. Ryan Noah.