
Heather has been a patient of mine for several years now. She brought her son Noah in for me to evaluate. Noah was a freshman in high school and had been through two rounds of orthodontic treatment with less than ideal results. Noah was born with 14 missing permanent teeth and after the orthodontic treatment and several visits to a prosthodontist there was never a clear cut Master Plan that would deal with Noah’s immediate esthetic and functional needs to get him through his growth years while also addressing a more definitive treatment plan for his long term health, function and esthetics.
As you can imagine, having missing teeth, especially in the esthetic zone (Noah was wearing a removable retainer to ‘temporarily’ replace his missing front teeth) is a big deal for anyone, much less a young man starting his high school career!
We ‘raised’ Noah’s bite (this is called increasing his vertical dimension of occlusion) with non-invasive composite bonding. This gave us the room needed to then fill in the missing teeth areas with bonded (fixed, they do not come out) composite bridges. Now Noah could eat his lunch in the cafeteria without having to take his teeth out! This interim restorative treatment was done with almost no alteration of his natural teeth. It was conservative and minimally invasive. This treatment will set Noah up for successful treatment with dental implants in the future. It will get him through his high school and growth phase years looking great and being able to chew and smile with ease!
When Noah is ready in the future we have a long-term plan in place to give him a beautiful, healthy and functional smile for the rest of his life!