A Gummy Smile
A gummy smile shows a band of gum above the teeth when you smile. Often the teeth are normal length but the gum covers too much of them. Esthetic crown lengthening reshapes the gumline to reveal the full tooth, in one visit, planned to a natural result.
“Went in for a Crown Lengthening consultation for my gummy smile. Dr. Verrett kept me well informed and comfortable during and after the procedure. He also makes sure in the follow-up appointments that everything has come out to your liking … Great experience here as I can’t be happier about my new smile :D!”
At the consult you see the planned gumline drawn on your own teeth before anything is decided. Nothing is treated that day, and monthly payment plans are available.
What It Usually Means
Three causes, sometimes combined. The teeth erupted fully but the gum never receded to its adult position, so it covers part of the crown. The upper lip lifts unusually high when you smile. Or the upper jaw is vertically long. The first is the most common and the easiest to fix; the second and third involve other specialists, and we’ll tell you if that applies. That first cause has a name, altered passive eruption, and in a review for Periodontology 2000, Mele and colleagues describe it as a relationship between teeth, alveolar bone, and soft tissue that creates an excessive display of gingiva, with treatment aimed at re-establishing the normal relationship between the gum margin, the bone crest, and the neck of the tooth. The condition was named and sorted into types in 1977, when Coslet, Vanarsdall and Weisgold set out the diagnosis and classification of delayed passive eruption of the dentogingival junction in the adult, and those types are still how the case is described at a consult.
What We’d Do
A consult measuring tooth proportions, the lip line at rest and smiling, and the position of the bone under the gum. If the cause is gum covering the teeth, esthetic crown lengthening reshapes the gumline, and when needed the bone edge, across the front teeth in a single visit. Two weeks to look good; three to six months to fully settle. Crown lengthening covers the procedure itself, and what treatment costs explains how an estimate is built and what moves the number, with payment plans available.
The American Academy of Periodontology describes the procedure the same way in its patient material: excess gum tissue is removed to expose more of the crown of the tooth, and the gumline is then sculpted.
How we treat it: Crown Lengthening and Gummy Smile Correction, or request a consult.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much gum is too much?
There is no medical threshold and no agreed number that counts as too much. What matters is whether it bothers you. Some people with a good deal of gum showing never think about it, and some with very little are self-conscious.
Will my teeth look too long afterward?
It is planned not to. The new gumline is set to the proportions of a natural tooth, and you see the planned gumline before anything is done.
Is it permanent?
Largely, yes. Reshaping the bone edge with the gum is what keeps it from growing back; a small amount of settling over the first year is normal and is planned for. The published evidence is reassuring but thin: a 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis by Smith and colleagues found crown-lengthened sites holding up much like the untreated teeth beside them at three and six months, on only four controlled trials, with the authors calling for more evidence. See the review.