Periodontal Plastic Surgery

Periodontal Plastic Surgery (PPS) is a subspecialty of Periodontics that Dr. Thomas Kang, Dr. Kevin Suzuki, Dr. Allen Liu, Dr. Jessica Hsu, Dr. Jenna Cha, Dr. Ehsan Zahedi and Dr. Julianna Shamoon have an interest and advanced training in. PPS is useful for patients that are considering other forms of cosmetic dentistry or may be unhappy with the way their smile looks because of excess gum tissue or a reduction in the amount of gum around the teeth. A “gummy smile” is one where during normal development full exposure of the tooth did not occur. As a result teeth may appear “too short” for a patient’s smile.

In other instances, gums may have receded with time due to genetics, hard brushing or a history of tooth grinding. In these cases conservative grafting techniques have been developed to restore the normal color, contour, and shape of the gums so that after treatment nobody, including the treating surgeon, is aware that any treatment was ever performed.