Oh Snap!

Simplified deep margin elevation for those tricky sub-gingival cases.

Patients are often surprised when they present to my clinic with a fractured tooth. The typical story involves the patient eating something soft like bread or cheese which is then almost always (wrongly) associated the catastrophic tooth failure. As engineer-minded professionals, we known this is usually not the case.

Fractures are often initiated far earlier. They can be related to the overall design of the tooth involved. For example, upper bicuspids have prominent, uninterrupted grooves spanning from mesial to distal. Just as glass snaps cleanly with a simple score mark, teeth experiencing heavy tensile forces can do the same. Lower second molars have similar occlusal anatomy, leaving them prone to a similar fate. Amalgam fillings on larger teeth tend to cause oblique fractures on the upper buccal cusps and lower lingual cusps. Clinical trends are quite consistent.