Dental Makeover - Case #9

This patient came to my office complaining of loose teeth, pain, headaches, and a smile that often had her covering her mouth at social events. This patient had multiple crowns placed on her front teeth about 10 years before coming to my office.

The metal underneath the porcelain was starting to show through the porcelain and the roots were becoming exposed. Patient had gum disease problems, missing teeth, and jaw joint dislocation (the main cause of headaches).

It is so important to pay attention to the health of the gums and jaw joint when performing cosmetic dentistry. Too many dentists are in a rush to place porcelain teeth in patient's mouths without paying any attention to underlying problems associated with gum disease and improper jaw function.

This patient demonstrates what happened ten years after her dentist rushed to place crowns on her teeth, without treating her gum problems and maintaining her mouth properly. After careful gum treatment we started restoring her mouth with two bridges on her lower jaw in order to stabilize her bite and produce proper jaw function.

These bridges included fabrication of 12 new teeth on her lower jaw. Without good function cosmetic dental work can fail after a few years, so it is critical to make sure that the jaws work effectively and the jaw joints conform to the function. If this is not taken into consideration, the patient can end up with headaches and jaw joint problems. We specialize in these forms of reconstruction, paying careful attention to muscle function, jaw to jaw relationship, and health of the jaw joint (dental occlusion).

Finally, we end our treatment with unsurpassed cosmetics! We ended her treatment by placing 14 porcelain crowns on her upper teeth, including 2 bridges to replace her missing teeth. We used Jeneric Pentron Porcelain fused to precious metal. Our own, on-site lab, produced these results. Due to her weakened teeth we decided to connect all of the teeth together. This is a very difficult procedure to accomplish because of the precision involved to "splint" all of the teeth in one unit for strength, stability, and long term health. The patient stated to us that she feels 20 years younger and has never been able to chew so well.