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Pre-treatment smile of patient who had been postponing treatment for many years. Sometimes it takes a life event like a class reunion or a marriage to prompt people to fix their teeth. In this case, this patient had a class reunion to attend. He didn't want to be self-conscious about his smile while visiting old friends.
20+ year old crowns. In addition to be unsightly there has been movement of teeth in the upper right and lower left quadrants because there are no opposing teeth in the opposite arch. This tooth loss pattern is difficult to treat. When teeth migrate from their original position, especially when they move out of the bone (super-eruption) it is nearly impossible to push them back into place. In extreme cases those teeth need to be extracted. In this case, because he had been wearing a removable partial denture the teeth had only moved a few millimeters. By opening the patients bite (increasing vertical dimension) we were able to save the teeth and put new crowns on them. In areas where teeth were missing, dental implants were used to give him "fixed" teeth in all areas.
Mirror view of upper arch. Patient was missing all back teeth on left.
Mirror view of lower arch. Patient missing all back teeth on the right.
X-ray shows remaining teeth and bone volume in areas where teeth missing. The patient has very little bone in the molar area. Patient opted out of bone grafting and we collectively decided that missing two molars on the left side was an acceptable outcome. (See pictures #7, 8 and 10).
Final result- frontal view. New crowns are beautiful, the proper length and the unevenness is corrected. The patient now has 10 fixed (non-removable) teeth in the upper arch and 12 fixed teeth in the lower arch with nothing removable with his chewing and smile fully restored.
Mirror view of restored upper arch.
Mirror view of restored lower arch.
Post-treatment x-ray showing a fully restored dentition. Contrast this x-ray with picture #5 to compare the before and after.
Pre-treatment smile of patient who had been postponing treatment for many years. Sometimes it takes a life event like a class reunion or a marriage to prompt people to fix their teeth. In this case, this patient had a class reunion to attend. He didn't want to be self-conscious about his smile while visiting old friends.
