"The patient is a 40 year old female who has been my dental assistant for the past 19 years. She has always been unhappy with her smile because she lost her upper left lateral incisor in an accident when she was a young child and the orthodontist moved the upper left canine into the lateral's position. The correction of the anterior teeth gave her a retruded appearance.

Before   After

After mounting diagnostic models and a smile analysis, we were able to offer the patient the restorative option of doing 9 IPS Empress veneers and recontouring the existing maxillary left cuspid to change it into a lateral and the existing upper left 1st bicuspid into a cuspid. Gingival recontouring was done on #7 and #8 to match the marginal height of #9 and #11 with the diode laser. We also increased the length of her anterior teeth and built them out to reduce the retruded appearance. The patient whitened her teeth before the veneer preparation in order for us to match the maxillary veneers to her whitened lower anterior shade.

The patient was extremely happy with her new smile that we had created for her wedding and continues to receive compliments on her beautiful smile. As I told Lori, "I hope she enjoys her new smile as much as I did in creating it."

- Dr. Gary L. Hardin

Gary L. Hardin, D.D.S. attended the University of Kentucky for his undergraduate studies and the Ohio State College of Dentistry. After graduating in 1975, Dr. Hardin went into private practice in the small rural community of Mason, Ohio just outside of Cincinnati. After several years of practice, Dr. Hardin decided he wanted to take his practice to the next level by specializing in cosmetic dentistry. He began by attending the Las Vegas Institute's Advanced Posterior Aesthetics program followed quickly by attendance at the Advanced Anterior Aesthetics program and the Occlusion course. He will be attending the Masters course in August 2001.