I am not sure what to do. I had to have a dental implant placed on a canine tooth. I was excited about it until the crown fiasco. I am pretty fastidious with my teeth and keep them rather white. My dentist said that my teeth are too white to match a crown. That I have unnaturally white teeth. I was a bit surprised by this statement as many people whiten their teeth these days. I really don’t want a tooth that looks really yellow compared to my other teeth. Is there any way to match this?
Lisa
Dear Lisa,
Before teeth whitening became very popular, dentists all used a similar shade guide that would help them to adequately match dental work, such as dental implant crowns, to the natural teeth. Then, the use of teeth whitening explodes. Suddenly, teeth were whiter than even the whitest shade on the guides dentists used.
Fortunately, some companies caught on and updated the shade guide. I provided an image of that above. It sounds to me that your dentist does not keep up with his field very well and does not have the updated shade guide to work with.
Here are a couple of recommendations. If your dental implant is otherwise okay and you have not yet paid for your crown portion, tell your dentist that you plan on getting the crown done elsewhere and that should end the issue as long as you go to a dentist a little more up to date in his field. If you’ve already paid for the crown, ask for a refund and tell him you are going elsewhere to have this crown done. It is not unreasonable to expect your dental implant crown to match the remainder of your teeth.
If there is any reason you are concerned about the dental implant, then I would suggest you have it looked at by another dentist before moving forward. If everything is okay, go ahead with the process mentioned above. If there is a problem, then you should ask for a complete refund, plus the cost of bone grafting.
This additional cost is because you will need to have the poorly done dental implant removed, which will take some of the bone structure with it. This structure will need to be replaced in order for you to have a secure implant when it is redone.
This blog is brought to you by Decatur, AL Dentists Drs. Drake and Wallace.