09/25/2025
Our patient, in her 50s, came to us with a broken front tooth (can you guess which one from first pic?). Here’s the story, maybe you’ve been through something similar yourself.
She had 8 beautiful upper crowns placed nearly 15 years ago. But over time, her grinding habits caused her bite to collapse, wearing down her lower front teeth significantly, even creating holes in her canines. Eventually, one of her upper front crowns gave in and broke right at the gumline (2nd pic).
As dentists, we’re trained to want to fix the immediate problem. But if I had just repaired that single tooth, another would have broken soon after and then another because the real issue wasn’t the tooth, it was her bite. So we stabilized the broken tooth with a temporary and had an honest discussion about how we can prevent further damage and the perpetual cycle of, “you break- I fix” dentistry.
She understood the value of comprehensive treatment and chose to move forward with 24 beautifully natural, hand crafted, porcelain veneers and onlay veneers for the lowers and replacement crowns for the top in order to improve her bite and esthetics.
Slide 2 (for context): When teeth wear down, the space between upper and lower arches decreases (aka a deep bite), creating excessive stress on the front teeth. That’s what caused her crown to snap at the gumline. The top and middle images show her bite before correction, with limited space. In the final result (bottom photo), you can see the space we created relieving pressure and protecting her new smile.