Hillsborough Dental

My lovely friend and co-worker, Patricia, retires this week. 🤩🥳🥺
Feel free to call in before noon on Friday to wish her well.

What did my day look like?
Is it always veneers and composite bonding?
Not today - I love the general practice and today was caring for many of my older patients who have been loyal to me and the practice for 20+ years.
There was a 78yo lady, a 45yo lady, a 66yo lady, a 77yo lady, an 85yo new patient, a 75yo gentleman, a 79yo lady, a couple aged 92 and 90, a 64yo lady, and to round it off a positively youthful 44yo lady.
A great day's craic 😆 as they are all young at heart.

This delightful, bubbly lady needed a quick fix to improve her smile for a big event in a few weeks time.
She disliked the two dark teeth which had old composite bonding.
My ideal here would be remove the old bonding, aligners to straighten the teeth, bleaching any remaining dark teeth, and composite edge bonding if needed to tidy worn biting edges. However time did not permit this plan.
So we replaced the two old bondings with new better coloured and shaped ones, and replaced an old filling too.
The photos taken with a polarised filter show the true "brightness" of the natural teeth compared to the old bondings.
The sequence of images shows the old bonding stripped back and the difficulties we faced with trying to mask the underlying dark central incisor. I use photos of test 'blobs' to help my design and planning.
What do you think of the result?

We celebrated 20 years of having the lovely Linda Brown working with us at Hillsborough Dental. 🥳
Congratulations Linda on this milestone and a big thank you from me for all that you have done helping our patients, your colleagues and myself and Debbie over the years.
🎉 🤩 🎉

You do not have to tolerate old crowns with dark edges.
Here we treated with a course of tooth whitening, replaced two old porcelain/metal crowns with modern eMax ceramic crowns and used thin composite veneers to brighten and lengthen the central incisors.
These shapes were the patient's preference - I personally would have liked more noticable "incisal embrasures" (the little upside-down 'V' cuts separating teeth at their biting edges). I think really flat looks 'worn'.
The teeth are dehydrated from prolonged mouth opening during treatment and as yet unpolished in the after pic.

Subtle tweaks to achieve the patient's desired end result.
I treated with Cfast braces and just the smallest of composite edge bonds to a single incisor to correct wear and gain matching central incisor lengths and contours.

Social media loves pretty.....but the reality is many of us are not there for one reason or another.
I often come across middle-late aged patients with multiple dental failure like this.
The reason I post is to give hope...
This lovely lady had been through a lot in life.
I managed to open her overclosed, collapsed bite and give her back a functional smile using a combination of crowns, bridges, veneers and implants to twenty teeth.
Thanks to Dr Gardiner for his implant surgery and for their ceramics.

To the untrained eye this looks from the first image to be a very simple case.
However the side pics show spacing which needs closed. Countering this is a cross bite on the patient's left lateral incisors which is resulting in tooth wear.
Of these two issues the former requires moving upper teeth back, yet the second issue requires moving them forward. 🤔
Thoughtful treatment planning and treatment with Smiletru UK & Europe clear aligners achieved the desired result in just three months.

You are already pursuing a career helping others. Would you be interested in using your skills in the expanding Hillsborough Dental team, delivering exceptional and compassionate cosmetic, comprehensive, referral and family dentistry?

Do you enjoy learning?
Do you enjoy teaching?

Beyond the regularly understood duties of a dental nurse, the role will bring opportunities to learn from friendly supportive clinicians who see you as an essential part of their ability to deliver their high standards of care to patients. There will also be opportunity to help mentor and develop younger trainee dental nursing staff.

Your input and ideas in improving practice systems and growth will be welcomed.

Our team has been together for over 15 years so we must be doing something right.

Competitive salary and holidays will be offered.
Full time preferred.

Key skills:
- Registered Dental Nurse with General Dental Council
- A team player and good communicator who is caring and passionate about delivering excellent standards of patient care.
- Motivation to constantly deliver and improve the patient journey in line with our vision and values for the practice.
- Friendly and professional
- Punctual, reliable and loyal
- Ability to work under pressure

Desirable though not essential skills:
- Familiar with social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn and how to utilise these to develop a following for the practice and keep an audience engaged and updated
- Computer experience
- Interest in health and beauty
- First aid

Applications:
Please email your CV to [email protected]

End of an era... I've been doing a Monday evening clinic for 26 years now and tonight was the last one. Helpfully Madison my dental nurse pointed out she wasn't even born when I started them 🤣

End of an era...I've been doing Mon evening clinic for 26 years and tonight was the last one. Helpfully my dental nurse pointed out she wasn't even born when I started them 🤣

Giraffes, like sheep, only have front teeth in their lower jaw.

What difference would a smile redesign make to your life?
Consult with us and discover your possibilities.
02892 688388
[email protected]

The average human has 32 teeth. Dogs have 42 and cats have 30...saws can have many more or less 😆

Dr Kevin's Composite Artistry freehand technique used to rehabilitate this severely worn smile for 24 year old Drew with six teeth treated.
I would ideally have liked to also treat premolars and fill out the smile width, but Drew was moving overseas for a time and couldn't schedule beforehand.
I refined the bite function by shaping the unseen backs of the build ups. In this way, I did not need to make a protective night guard.
However, in the three years since this was done, we have needed to do a small repair to one lateral tooth.
This is not surprising because there is nothing I can rebuild your tooth with that is going to be as strong as your own original tooth, and look just how much wear damage Drew inflicted on himself before treatment.
This photo was taken immediately post-treatment, so the redness of the gum margins will resolve with good home cleaning.

Do you see much of a change in this case?
I did subtle composite bonding using Dr Kev's Composite Artistry technique to four front teeth, lengthening to get better proportions between central and lateral teeth.
The trend at the moment seems to be extra bright by applying a thick layer of composite bonding to all visible teeth. In this case that would need 10 teeth treated and 10 composite bondings to repair and replace in the future, rather than our more subtle blend and only four teeth to maintain.
The visual impact of the improved smile can be seen in the portrait before and after slide.

What do you think of this veneer replacement case?
Four old veneers - one totally lost, one chipped and two stained - were replaced with eMax ceramic veneers.
I would have liked to
a) lengthen the teeth to get better width to height ratio (ideally in the 70-80% range, these are 88%)
b) tip the right lateral tooth forward (the one in line with "The Art") to raise the gum height.
However (a) would have involved much more comprehensive treatment of back teeth and the patient declined both improvements.

The details make the difference in cosmetic dentistry.
Start a conversation with us at www.hillsboroughdental.co.uk/virtual-consult