Too much gums!? What do you do?

It was nice to have a day off and everyone in the city is always in a good mood this time of year...at least those of us who are not vacationing somewhere!!
Today a patient came in who had lost all the teeth on one side of his lower jaw...the implant surgeon placed three implants and we will be restoring the entire lower right area with implants.
Here is the photo of the the front two implants...

Today's procedure is really only about the front two of the implants as they will support a three tooth bridge...while the last back implant will have a single cap restoration...so take a close look at the front two...


This is a situation where the gums that are between the two implants are very high and bulbous and any artificial tooth placed on this will both not look natural and will collect food underneath...so...we will recontour the gums, place a temp bridge for about a month, let it heal and then hopefully have a better gum contour when we see the patient next...
so here we have anesthetized the patient and gently recontoured the gums...

And a three tooth temp bridge has been placed...this bridge will not only provide the patient with some teeth to chew but will hold our gums down in the area that we have reshaped them....we will work on the very back implant at a future appointment!