WHITE, NEW TEETH

Interview with Joanna Hahs-Gaborska from HAHS Dental and Implantology Clinic in Szczecin

Recently, we presented our readers with the specifics of implantology. Today, this type of treatment is very popular among patients. In today’s conversation, let’s focus on what patients should actually expect when choosing implants.

The number of patients is indeed growing. Each year in HAHS Clinic, we carry out more than 500 implants. At the beginning it’s worth reminding , why patients more and more often pass on traditional bridges or dentures and choose implants. The primary positive attribute of implants is that prosthetic solutions (crowns, brides and dentures) affixed to them ensure the feeling of regaining one’s own teeth. Conventional solutions cause patients many problems, such as: falling out or moving dentures, difficulties in eating, talking etc.

We may say, therefore, that implants are a great investment for patients valuing esthetics and comfort of new teeth.

We may, indeed. An implant allows dentists to „create” a totally new tooth constituting a perfect imitation of the fallen out natural tooth. Thanks to this, implants may be applied for virtually every patient with a lack of one, few or all teeth.

What it means to “create a new tooth on an implant?”

Implant is a small screw fulfilling the role of root for the new tooth. Only on an implant, a dentist may “create” what a patients desires the most – a new tooth. Therefore, placing an implant in on bone is the very beginning. The subsequent phase of the treatment is prosthetic reconstruction – the “creation”. It is a very precise process of giving new teeth appropriate function, shape and esthetic.

Patients choosing implants have high expectations – this is after all a large expense for them. Let us describe how this process decisive for final effect proceeds.

Whether patients will be satisfied with new teeth or not depends on how precisely a dentist will reconstruct patient’s teeth conditions as well as whether he will take appropriate care of esthetic of created crowns. While working on rebuilding patient’s teeth, neither a dentist nor a dental technician can afford a so-called “more or less” actions. Regardless of whether they reconstruct one or several teeth. It is important to start prosthetic works with collecting required information about the patient’s mouth condition. A dentist cannot begin to create crowns or dentures prior to obtaining appropriate information. Consequences of inaccurate diagnosis and careless analysis of patient’s chewing conditions are very serious. The gravest are among others: overburdening and mutual forcing by wrongly arranged new teeth, implant loss or changes in mandibular joint (often painful).

What should patients focus on to be sure that their investment in new teeth will bring expected benefits?

There’s no denying that appropriate equipment is the guarantee of proper diagnosis. Theoretic knowledge will not replace it. Every patient bites differently, with different strength, putting their teeth in various ways. In HAHS Clinic, all dentures and crowns (not only these attached to implants) are created on the basis of computer diagnosis of mandible against jaw movements. We use electronic 3D face curve which enables to transfer 3D image of patient’s jaws into the computer. After analyzing collected data by the program, we may perfectly reconstruct bite conditions of the patient and transfer them to an articulator, where we create and adjust patient’s teeth. This gives us the guarantee of eliminating above mentioned overburdening and teeth mutual forcing. As a result, is allows to prevent implant loss and inappropriate alterations in mandibular joints. The last stage of prosthetic creation is the aesthetics. The point is to make the new tooth a perfect imitation of a natural tooth. Obtaining such an effect is not simple, though. One tooth has several or a dozen or so colors, in different configuration per every patient. Illustrating the entire range of colors on a porcelain crown requires a great professional intuition and precision. In our clinic’s laboratory, the color of a crown for a new tooth is matched for each patient by a special, computer unit called Spectro Shade. It scans teeth and creates a so-called color map for every tooth. This allows to perfectly reflect the natural tooth color on the surface of the new crown. The task of dental technician is to follow directions of the map analysis. Effects are sensational.

As our conversation shows, an implant is only “a tip of an iceberg”.

Exactly. An implant is a point of departure. After all, a patient doesn’t care about the implant but about regaining lost teeth, comfort and esthetics. Therefore, a dentist uses an implant to lay teeth against it and meet patient’s expectations. It is import to manufacture new teeth in the most ideal manner. Technologies, which we use, are the evidence of the fact that the present level of dentistry development allows us to obtain the desired, even the most sophisticated effects.

Conducted by: Malgorzata Annusewicz