Leawood Center for Dental Excellence

Esthetic/Restorative Therapies

Our style of care gives you many reasons to smile! We make sure we understand your needs and concerns, and you understand our care recommendations before we begin treatment. Review all the exciting health restoring and appearance-enhancing options we provide. Then call or email us to schedule a confidential consultation.

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Comprehensive Esthetic Makeovers — creating lasting beauty and confident smiles
Complete Smile Rejuvenation – achieving revitalized health, no matter the condition of a smile
Porcelain Veneers – gaps closed, straightening smiles in a few visits
Smile Contouring/Bonding – chipped teeth restored, gaps closed, teeth lengthened in one visit
Porcelain Crowns – restoring broken, worn, missing teeth
Smile Whitening – professional, safe, effective, exciting
Tooth Colored Fillings – healthfully, transforming dull, gray metal fillings
Dental Implants – lifelike tooth replacements instead of bridges, partials or full dentures
Esthetic Gum Contouring • creating the perfect gum line

Comprehensive Dental Makeovers
A smile makeover can be similar to complete rehabilitation; it can involve many of the same restorative and esthetic techniques. However, the patient has few if any significant health or tooth loss issues.

Patients may have crowded, crooked or short teeth or spaces between many teeth. Congenital defects can mean that teeth were underdeveloped or disfigured in appearance. Tetracycline medicine could have darkened and stained an entire smile.

Because this is a makeover we are very conscious about how each tooth restoration will affect the other. Replacing the front six or eight might make the most sense from an obvious esthetic viewpoint - what most people will see when you smile - but only enhancing a few front teeth can mean those new teeth might be prone to break or chip or cause painful jaw tension.

Therefore, we might restoratively (and esthetically) enhance many other teeth in the mouth. Since quality and long-term patient satisfaction is our trademark, it is difficult to proceed unless the patient approves a comprehensive makeover when warranted. Not every patient needs a makeover but we want to make sure each patient gets the care they deserve.

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Complete Dental Rejuvenation
There are many reasons why one might need a full dental reconstruction. For many people, they have taken as good care of their mouths as they could. However, they leave a history of always needing dental care. Now they have a mouth full of restorations that have been done over many years and are no longer stable.

Periodontal disease destroys supporting bone, causing the imminent loss of teeth or recurrent decay on multiple crowns and bridges. Maybe occlusal (how the teeth come together) or bite problems have caused excessive wear on the natural teeth and has aggravated the TM jaw joint. An auto accident or other traumatic insult may be the cause.

All of these conditions could warrant a rehabilitation of the entire mouth. Properly diagnosed, planned and executed this type of dentistry has been able to return patients to a comfortable, functional, stable oral health. Of course, the patient will have a picture perfect smile, too.

We avoid stopgap measures in almost every case because we believe patients are best served by taking advantage of our comprehensive expertise first. If you are ready for a complete solution, you have come to the right place.

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Porcelain Veneers
Porcelain veneers are custom designed, thin pieces of porcelain that are molecularly bonded to your natural teeth. They are used to restore chipped teeth, straighten smiles, transform stained teeth, and close gaps between teeth.

Veneers can be perfectly color matched to adjacent natural teeth and are very natural looking and strong. They can dramatically improve your smile. They are a long-term solution.

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Smile Contouring • Bonding
Bonding resin is artistically applied layer-by-layer and fuses to your teeth and creates a strong and durable bond, almost like your natural enamel. Spaces in your smile can be eliminated and your teeth lengthened with this contouring material.
It comes in natural shades and shades for those who want a bright white smile. Usually minimal removal of tooth structure is required. In as little as one visit you can have a wonderful new smile.

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Porcelain Crowns
For a long-lasting, beautiful smile, porcelain crowns may be the answer. An impression of your smile is made, which is used to create a model for preparing the crown or crowns. Then our high-quality dental laboratory creates the crown to our exacting specifications.

Dr. Herre then crafts it perfectly to your natural tooth and permanently bonds it in place. The color is perfectly matched to adjacent teeth. Even you will have trouble discerning which tooth has been restored.

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Smile Whitening
If your perfect smile includes bright, white teeth, we have the professional methods to give you the smile you want. Teeth stained from foods, beverages or tobacco use can be effectively whitened with our dentist-approved whitening system.

We will make a form-fitted whitening tray to hold the whitening agent that you wear at night or during the day at home. The results are amazingly bright and can transform a discolored smile in a couple of weeks. We also offer one-visit, in-office Zoom whitening.

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Composite Tooth Colored Fillings
In the past, when an old filling wore out, or decay was discovered beneath it, your only option was to get another metal filling. This often meant further damage of the natural tooth to place an even larger filling. Composite bonding material works at the molecular level. “Silver fillings” are an unforgiving material that expands and contracts, which often causes teeth to crack, split and break.

Composite bonding can replace dark silver fillings and make your teeth look natural once again.

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Dental Implants • Implant Restoration
Many patients have been fitted with dentures due to the loss of a tooth, many or all teeth. Implants can eliminate uncomfortable full or partial dentures and give you the confident smile that you have always wanted. They feel natural, look natural and are as easy to take care of as your own teeth.

This two-step process involves first placing the "post" of the implant in the jawbone. Temporary restorations are put in place at this point so no one knows you are getting dental treatment. After the implant is secure, we will create a crown, bridge or removable appliance that is fitted to the implant post. You are then able to smile with confidence again, knowing you look your very best. Eat, chew and experience life as you would with a natural smile.

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Esthetic Gum Contouring • the perfect gum line
Changing a gummy smile can change your outlook. Your gum tissue can make your teeth look short. Gum tissue can cover more of your smile than is necessary to protect it. Gum tissue contouring can solve these smile inconsistencies.

Gum contouring can also fill gaps in your gum line that can cause your teeth to look too long. It is also performed during other more complex smile cases where dental implants and bridges are used, or when oral trauma has occurred.

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