I have been ordering my supplies recently from a new dentist-owned GPO (Group Purchasing Organization). I had been ordering from one of the ‘major’ dental supply companies but found them REALLY overpriced when I did a comparison to Synergy. The Synergy concept is to use a large group of dental professionals to negotiate reduced prices on supplies. Read more about it here.
And here’s the final result:
The patient was thrilled to have this area filled in! We’ll get him back soon for a ‘final’ photo, after the tissue has healed completely and the teeth have re-hydrated (they get a bit dried out during the bonding process).
The orthodontist moved the teeth and carefully created the ideal space for a lateral incisor:
Stone model during orthodontics
As discussed below, option 1 involves moving the teeth to their optimal position leaving the ideal spacing in place so the restorative dentist can bond the spaces that are left, creating teeth that are proportional to the other teeth. But if the orthodontist does not leave the correct amount of space the final result will result in a tooth that is too large or small for the others. In other words, the space has to be filled. If there’s too little you end up with a mini-tooth…..too much and you get a Chicklet! Not good!
Bottom line….the orthodontist has to get the spaces PERFECT for this option to work.
Although this had been fractured for many years, this nice lady agreed to have the tooth repaired after additional small pieces fractured off. And she was heading overseas for an extended trip, too. So we wanted to be sure she had no problems on her trip.
fractured tooth
This was a tough deal. This poor man was on a camping trip with his kids in the middle-of-nowhere when his porcelain crown broke. He managed to slip it back into place and showed up to see us with the piece in hand.
Broken porcelain
A few minutes later and we got this retired dentist back together. He was pleased with the final result….and so were we!
Repaired fracture tooth
And the final product. To look at these teeth you’d never know they originally had such large cavities. And one or both of these will end up having crowns ‘down the road’ due to the extensive damage and amount of tooth that was destroyed from the decay.
So here we go again….just starting to clean out the cavity and look how much is hidden inside this tooth!
A recent study published in the Journal of Periodontology has shown a link between stress and periodontal, or gum, disease. Read more about it here.
