
Lower photo: Thirty years ago Adrienne had two porcelain on metal bridges for her six front teeth. A yellow color was used to match to her other teeth. Upper photo: Adrienne felt her teeth were dingy and old looking and she wanted a whiter, younger looking smile. Dr. Huefner redid her old dentistry with two new all porcelain bridges using a much whiter color. He also placed four porcelain veneers on her side teeth. The end result for this amazing lady in her 70s was a much more attractive and “younger looking” smile.
Adrienne from Laguna Hills has been a patient of mine for over 30 years. I first met her after she had an accident. She had fallen on her face, knocking out one tooth and breaking several others. So, we fixed Adrienne’s smile by making her two bridges for the front of her mouth. But back then, in the 1980s, cosmetic dentistry wasn’t anything like it is today. I did for Adrienne what most other dentists were doing at that time, I matched her bridgework to her other teeth. Back then ideal dentistry centered around the word “natural”, and that meant any new dentistry “should” match the other adjacent teeth, regardless of how yellow, dark or discolored those other teeth were.
Adrienne wanted a younger looking smile
After several decades Adrienne’s bridges were still holding up fine, but her teeth had moved slightly, creating a slight space between the front two central incisor teeth. That didn’t seem to bother Adrienne. What did bother her was that she felt like her teeth were dingy yellow, making her look older. Adrienne has a great personality and very positive attitude, always laughing, but now she was getting self conscious about smiling! She said she was ready to redo her old dental work, but she wanted whiter teeth and a younger looking smile! This is a very common remark that we hear from many of your patients today that we really didn’t hear to much thirty years ago.

Adrienne loved to smile, but her dark, dingy looking teeth were making her self conscious. It was time to replace her old dentistry and get the kind of teeth that would enhance her smile and her appearance.
We discussed some of the new options I could now offer Adrienne. An all ceramic bridge without any metal understructure would look much more natural than her other bridge. However if we were going to make her her six front teeth whiter, then we still had to contend with her very dark side (bicuspid) teeth. Dr. Huefner asked her if she would be willing to have him place four porcelain veneers on her side teeth? That would solve the color match problem. If we did that, all the teeth she showed when she smiled would be white and younger looking.

Adrienne loved the new smile that Dr. Huefner made for her with two new all porcelain bridges and four porcelain veneers. “I love to smile now,” she told Dr. Huefner.
“In a heart beat”, Adrienne answered Dr. Huefner. “Just promise me that my smile will be more attractive and younger looking. I don’t expect you to make me look like a young girl, because I’m certainly not, but I don’t want my smile to be an old lady’s smile anymore!”
In only six weeks Adrienne got the younger looking smile that she had always wanted
We started Adrienne’s cosmetic dentistry, replacing her old unattractive dentistry the following week. We made her two all porcelain bridges for her front six teeth, and also four porcelain veneers for her side teeth. Her treatment was completed in less than three weeks time and Adrienne was elated with the results because she got the younger looking smile she asked Dr. Huefner for.
Dr. Norman Huefner, Laguna Niguel cosmetic dentist serving Orange County, Laguna Hills, Mission Viejo and Irvine
www.drhuefner.com