Single Implant For An Actress

This young actress showed up at our clinic with a hopeless premolar on her right side.

As her job requires her to look good in front of the camera all the time, she cannot afford to go without a tooth.

We extracted her tooth and inserted a tiny one-tooth Flexite immediate denture.

With pink coloured nylon claps and no coverage of her palate, she was able to look good before the camera and not have a denture plate interfere with her speech immediately after her extraction.

2 months after extraction, she came in for implant surgery. The healing was not very good and the bone quality not as good as we had wanted it to be, but we managed to insert a 4.5mmx8.5mm Osstem GSII implant into the space.

The extraction space after 2 months.
Healing is not perfect, making the surgery a challenging one.

The implant is in place.
The blue fixture mount was removed and the wound was stitched up.
She reported only mild discomfort after surgery and went straight back to work.
The restoration phase of the treatment will take place in 3 months.
We will post the updates then.

2 months post-op! Our beautiful actress showed up.
We relieved her of her Flexite denture, did a surgical exposure of her implant and attached an abutment to it.

Sorry, we were so excited we didn't clean up the area before taking this picture.

After that, we placed a temporary crown over the abutment.
We will wait another 2 weeks for the cut gums to heal, at which time we'll take impressions for the permanent crown.

Sorry, we were so excited we didn't clean up the area before taking this picture.

The finished product.

The patient had some reaction to the temporary crown material.
The inflammation is expected to clear in a couple of days.

A very daring super close up.
The gums have been pushed aside by the temporary crown.
They will soon settle in nicely with the new crown.
The patient has her tooth back.

Bonding In The House

This young lady was complaining about a discoloured tooth on her upper left side. We recommended bonding which not only masked the discolouration but changed the apparent positions of her instanding lateral incisors.

We have rounded off the sharp tips of her canines and roughened the surfaces of her 2 teeth to be bonded.

Her 2 lateral incisors are "in".

Bonding completed in less than 30mins. Front view.

Implant Restoration

The Dental Implant

The procedure is technically known as an endosseous implant.

The implant behaves like an artificial root on top of which a new artificial porcelain tooth can later be screwed in or cemented.

The implant is serted surgically in the existing jawbone and can remain in place for years.
The procedure to place the implant is a minor, two-step surgical process.

While some people express concern at undergoing minor surgery, the procedure is actually less invasive than having a tooth removed.

There is another significant, therapeutic benefit to implants: They prevent further bone loss and help maintain ridge form.

The Smile In Your Future

There are people who are smile-challenged for another reason: They are ashamed of their teeth and gums.

They believe their smile is unattractive.

Perhaps their teeth are crooked, or stained from years of drinking beverages like coffee, tea, and cola, or from smoking tabacco.

Perhaps some teeth are chipped or missing.

Whatever the reason, by keeping their smile imprisoned behind their lips they deprive themselves of the most vital communication tool we have apart from speech itself.

If you're one of those people, the good news is that these problems can be corrected.

Learn more about how you can achieve the perfect smile you've always wanted.

Mini Implants

Here are the recent patient questions on dental implants:
Q = Question ; A = Answer

Q: What are my options for implants?
A: The cheapest and uncomfortable would be denture.

Q: How long do dental implants last?
A: As to the longevity of dental implants, honestly at the present time we cannot answer this question.

Q: How much does mini implant cost?
A: About $2500.

Q: Can i use my medisave to pay for it?
A: No. Unless you go for conventional implant.

Q: What is the dental implants procedure?
A: The first step in the decision for dental implants is to make an appointment with a qualified dentist for an evaluation. Dentist will examine your mouth and teeth and take a thorough medical and dental history. X-ray will be taken on the consultation day which will give the dentist a good idea of your bone density and the shape of your jaw. Dental implants is a process generally performed in the office with local anesthesia or light sedation to help make the patient more comfortable. Using precise, gentle surgical techniques, the implants are placed into the jawbone for 3 to 6 months while osseointegration takes place. This helps ensure a strong, solid foundation for replacement teeth. During this time, temporary bridges or dentures may be used to minimize any cosmetic or chewing inconvenience.

Q: Can i choose the type of anesthesia for dental implant surgery?
A: There's MUST on local anesthesia. But if you're require for general anesthesia, we will provide it for you too.

Q: Am i going to hospitalization?
A: Not necessary.

Q: What is the long-term success rate?
A: The simply answer to the long-term success rate of dental implants are that dental implants can fail, but fortunately very infrequently. Failure rates vary depending on the site in the mouth, whether they are placed into natural or grafted bone and whether the patient smokes. The overall success rates in natural bone is 95%, though this falls to between 85 and 90% in grafted bone. If a patient smokes it has been shown that they are statistically two and a half times more likely to have an implant fail than a non-smoker.


In order to better understand how mini implants work, it will be helpful to read about the history and current status of standard dental implants.

http://www.osseonews.com/standard-implants-vs-mini-implants-for-lower-overdenture/

White Spot On Teeth

A number of factors can lead to the development of white spots on teeth.

Sometimes these spots are caused by nutrition, genetics, or an excessive intake of fluoride, while other times they become evident after braces have been removed. Some children also develop white spots on their teeth as they are developing.

Usually white spots that appear on the teeth are actually areas of decalcified enamel and sometimes this problem can actually lead to the deterioration of teeth. Some dentists will tell you that the first evidence of tooth decay is a white spot lesion and by this description they mean that the tooth’s enamel has taken on an opaque color in the area where the cavity is beginning to form.

White spots on the teeth can appear after changes have occurred in the mineral content of a person’s teeth. White spots can also appear in connection with a condition called fluorosis, which is the result of having an excessive intake of fluoride. People who live in areas where drinking water contains a high fluoride level often encounter this problem.

White spot lesions are also commonly attributed to having braces. People with orthodontic braces often have trouble properly brushing their teeth and the result is a build-up of plaque. The acids in plaque can severely harm tooth enamel and eventually cause cavities. The first evidence of this type of tooth decay is the white decalcified enamel spot or lesion that becomes apparent when braces are removed.

Treatment options for white spots on teeth can include fluoride treatment, bonding and porcelain laminate placement depending on the severity of the problem.

Most people do not realize that sometimes having bright, white teeth isn’t necessarily a good thing. So, if you haven’t been brushing and flossing but you’ve noticed your teeth are getting whiter keep in mind you might be well on the way to decay.

Above information are from this link.

If You Have The Gummy Smile...

What is gummy smile?

A smile is considered a 'gummy smile' if a significant amount of gums can be seens as a person smiles. Below

The gummy smile (1)

The gummy smile (2)

The gummy smile (3)

I personally think that a person's appearance, 70% is depending on the smile. Or you might say that if she/he looks ugly or so so... i would say that people's are rely on make-up or garment dressed. In this world, no one is ugly. Everyone has a good looking.

Correcting gummy smile can be accomplished by one oof two possible simple surgical procedures. The first procedure is called a gingivetomy. Gingivectomies are performed when the amount of gum reduction necessary is minimal such as in mild gummy smiles. During a gingivetomy, a minimal of gum tissue is removed. The procedure is painless, requires no sutures, and the gum tissues usually heal within two weeks.

More advanced gummy smiles require more extensive tissue reduction. This is performed by a procedure known as crown lengthening. During this painless procedure, the gum tissues are contoured around each individual tooth. The tissue is lifted off the bone and placed in a desired new position. The tissues are sutured into place and allowed to heal for 7 - 10 days. After initial healing, the sutures are removed. The newly repositioned gums are allowed to heal for an additional 5 - 7 weeks before any final restorations can be placed. Following a crown lengthening procedure, further treatment with either porcelain veneers or porcelain crowns will be required to achieve a beautiful new smile. These final restorations can be completed in just two visits.

Merry Christmas 2009

We are down to our last box of bleaching kit.
The new shipment will definitely arrive after X'mas and hopefully before the end of the year.
You're still not late to make a date with us to get a bright smile for Valentine's Day.We wishes you Merry Christmas in advance~

More Emax

This middle aged lady had a couple of discoloured and root canal treated front teeth. She wanted the aesthetics to be improved.

2 discoloured teeth.
Alignment is also slightly off.

Emax crowns tried in the mouth.

Colour and alignment have been corrected.

Emax crowns cemented.

Time to do scaling and a new denture for her back teeth.

Long Span Bridge

Long span bridges are difficult to manage. The supporting teeth must be prepared in perfect alignment in order for the bridge to fit properly.

The technician's challenge is to fabricate this huge complex of porcelain and metal without distortion.

In this case, the 2 mains issues are the patient's resorbed ridge and budget problems. It should ideally be treated with augmentation surgery and zirconia bridge. She's settling for PFM bridge, short pink porcelain flange and no surgery.

The patient is missing 4 incisors in front and one premolar on the right side. She wore a denture which looked awfully short because it kept sinking into her somewhat deficient front. Bone and soft tissue grafting was suggested, but the patient did not want surgery.

The compromise would be to add some pink porcelain to the front part. It makes the bridge more difficult to clean but it props up the front part a little.

Here's the bridge in the mouth. As mentioned earlier, the pink flange is not ideal. Surgery would have produced better results. Still, the margin between porcelain and gum is visible only when her lip is lifted.

Given our limitations, the bridge fits reasonably well. A zirconia bridge would have been easier to fit and might look a little more natural, but in spite of the compromises, this bridge turned out looking pretty natural with good colour match.

Confidence Smile

This yoga instructor has been very self conscious about her less than perfect smile. Take a close look and you'll see why.



Her problem is quite obvious. Her left central incisor is somewhat elongated.

There is also quite a big gap between her left incisors.

The obvious solution is to trimmed down the elongated teeth after root canal treatment. The gap is even more obvious now that the teeth have been trimmed shorter. Note also that the two central incisors are not in alignment. We recommended 3 emax crowns for this patient.

Here are her finished emax crowns. Note the vast improvement. However, the patient finds her right lateral incisor a bit short and sunken.

To create some semblance of symmetry, bonding was done to prop up the lateral incisor and also to lenghten it. Here are the results. The lateral incisor looks good for the moment, but bonded teeth may stain or chip over time.

A veneer would be ideal for that bonded tooth.

Improved Your Smile

Today i have another new case to share with you.

This very attractive image consultant has been living with a crooked front tooth for ages. It affects her smile and her confidence. Since putting on braces is not an option, she decided to consult us.

She has a crooked tooth that spoiled an otherwise beautiful smile. There is an obvious displacement and overlap of that tooth. From this angle, the left central incisor seems to overlap the other tooth.

 

The crown back from the lab.

The crown tried in her mouth.

It's so amazing that the crown is indistinguishable from the natural tooth.

Of cause there's an improved image.

Even if nobody notices it, the patient is more confident whether she's conducting a class or posing for the camera.