How Gum Contouring Enhances a Smile Makeover?

Are your gums too high or too low or too visible? Sometimes your gums may require a little reshaping in order to enhance your smile or to prevent more serious dental issues from harming your overall health.

Gum contouring is a procedure that reshapes your gums. It’s usually used as a cosmetic dental treatment to improve the appearance of your teeth and smile by making the gums more symmetrical. Gum contouring is also used to treat oral health concerns, like gum disease.

When it comes to the best cosmetic dentistry in India, there are many techniques and procedures to help you get the smile of your dreams. Ranging from ceramic / porcelain veneers to teeth whitening treatments (with the latest zoom white speed), it can take only a few visits to create the smile that you desire. One of the common and important procedures performed during a smile makeover treatment is gum contouring. This procedure helps to enhance your smile and gets your teeth to stand out like they should. Here is everything you need to know about how gum contouring can improve your pearly whites.

What is Gum Contouring?

Gum contouring, also known as gingival contouring, is a permanent solution to reshape and contour the gum line to give you a more radiant smile. A laser / manual method may be used according to the individual’s oral health to treat many different gum problems that can take away from the beauty of your smile. These include removing excess gum tissue. Your gum line can be contoured to look more even, uniform and natural. Gum contouring can also help the appearance of small teeth, as this is usually caused by excess gum tissue covering the tooth making them appear smaller. Once this unneeded tissue is removed, the hidden portion of the tooth is revealed and it makes your ‘gummy’ smile look more balanced and aesthetic.

Gum contouring is usually performed for cosmetic reasons to fix the appearance of too much gum showing in your smile. It can also be used to treat gums that are affected by poor dental hygiene, such as bad brushing habits that cause plaque to accumulate on gums. Gum contouring works best when combined with smile makeovers with ceramic veneers, to achieve your desired smile.

So, How Does the Gum Contouring Procedure Work?

In most cases, we perform gum contouring using a non-invasive soft tissue laser to gently adjust your gum line to the desired shape. Gum tissue is vaporized and sealed gently with no cutting, bleeding or sutures. And the procedure is generally completed in only one appointment.

Whether you require gum contouring for cosmetic or health reasons, we’ll work with you to determine a treatment plan for your gums.  After we’ve examined your gums and teeth and reviewed your oral health, if gum contouring is a good option for you that meets your dental needs, we’ll go over the procedure with you and answer any questions.

A soft tissue laser is used to perform this procedure. It is usually done in less than an hour. In order to keep you as comfortable as possible a local anaesthetic is applied, as the area is numbed. The laser is used to remove excess tissue and reshape the gums. The unwanted tissue is not cut or burned, but rather vaporized by breaking down the cellular connection.

The excess tissue has no functional benefit so removing it will not cause  any harm to your teeth. The lasers can also be used to destroy trapped bacteria on areas of the gums to eliminate future infection. If your teeth are not straight, gum contouring can be combined with  ceramic veneer treatment or dental implants treatment for a full smile makeover.

This minimally invasive procedure is almost painless. The laser seals and sterilizes the gum tissue, which prevents bleeding and infection. It is best to get this procedure done by an experienced and well qualified cosmetic dentist in Delhi. This is because they have an artistic eye and will be able to give an even and proportional gum shape. Once the procedure is complete, your gum line will be reshaped to enhance and balance your smile.

Before the innovative use of lasers, gum contouring was performed with a scalpel. As you can imagine, this process was relatively more uncomfortable, less precise and required a longer recovery process. Lasers are able to precisely sculpt the gum line to look natural and proportional to your face. The laser seals and disinfects those gums as it cuts, which is bloodless and a very short healing time.

Recovery and Risks

After your procedure, it is normal to experience slight swelling and discomfort. Follow diligent, proper dental hygiene while your gums are healing. When flossing and brushing your teeth and gums, be gentle to avoid any irritation. Irritation to your new gum line could lead to bleeding and infection. Although you must be careful to ensure proper healing, recovery time after the procedure is usually short, a day or maximum two .

You should avoid hard, spicy or crunchy foods that could potentially become stuck in your teeth or gums until you have fully recovered from your procedure. Your doctor may recommend sticking to liquid and soft foods for the first 24 hours after your gum contouring.

Medications to manage pain or prevent infections may be prescribed by your dentist. Recovery should not affect your everyday activities.

Will You Benefit from Gum Contouring?

Gum contouring may be right for you if you are unsatisfied with the amount of your gums that shows when you smile. If you have ever felt like you have a “gummy” smile or that your gums cover too much of your teeth, this treatment will be beneficial for you. Patients who want to fix an uneven gum line will love the precise results and symmetry that the soft tissue laser provides. It can also help fix the unappealing appearance of gum tissue exposed between teeth.

Your smile is one of the first things people notice when they meet you. If you are unhappy with the way that your smile looks, it can be very apparent to the people that you have conversations with. This procedure offers a permanent solution for those that want to improve their self-confidence. Gum contouring leaves you with an enhanced smile and balanced gum line.

Gum contouring can be combined with other non-surgical procedures like porcelain / ceramic veneers for a complete smile makeover, if there are other parts of your smile that you are not confident about. At ‘Smile Delhi – The Dental Clinic,’ we pride ourselves in being able to give you a completely new, beautifully, enhanced smile. This can often give you a rejuvenated and youthful appearance, without ever having to undergo plastic surgery.

Here are 5 Ways Gum Contouring Can Help Your Smile and your health:

Gummy Smile – This is when your gums take up more of your ‘smile real estate’ than you’d like. When you smile or laugh, you may feel that too much gum appears and that it interferes with the look of your smile. Gum contouring can trim away some of this excess gum tissue to improve the balance between your teeth and gum line, giving you a more symmetrical smile.

Uneven or Crooked Teeth – Sometimes your teeth may appear to be crooked or uneven, but there’s nothing wrong with your teeth. They’re actually even or straight. It’s your gum line that’s uneven. Reshaping your gums around certain teeth can even out your gum line to correct this “illusion”.

Small Teeth – When your gums cover a large portion of your teeth, this may make your front teeth look relatively small, or short. We can slightly lower your gum line to make your teeth appear larger, so that there’s a better balance in size between your teeth and gums.

Misshaped Teeth – This occurs when your uneven gum line makes one or more of your teeth appear odd-shaped compared to your other teeth. Once again, we can adjust your gum, so as to correct any teeth that appear misshaped compared to your other teeth.

Severe Gum Recession – When your gums are healthy, they cover the root of your tooth and help keep the tooth firmly in place. But when gums recede, usually because of advanced gum disease, they pull away from your teeth. This is called the gum recession. And in severe cases, this recession creates pockets between your teeth and gums, where bacteria and plaque from food particles are trapped, making your tooth more susceptible to tooth decay, and cavities, as well as possible jawbone deterioration and tooth loss. More severe gum recession is usually a sign of gum disease, which can also affect your overall health. When you have more extreme gum recession, contouring the receded gums can help save the health of your gums, help correct gum disease, and save your teeth. In this case, you could say that gum contouring is good for your health, not just the look of your smile.

To book an appointment with us at, ‘Smile Delhi – The Dental Clinic’– call us on +91-9811106871 or whatsapp Dr. Suprriya B Bhatia on +91-9811106377. We pride ourselves to have the best cosmetic dentist in South Delhi. You can also mail us on [email protected]

“We Care To Make You Smile”

Posted by: Dr Hema