Improve the Aesthetics & Health of Your Smile with a Full Mouth Rehabilitation

You know a lot of patients come to me and they're concerned with their smiles, their teeth are worn down or that they don't show enough teeth when they smile, and a lot of people will come to me with those concerns and they don't know exactly how to fix it. And so I usually have a conversation with them about what's called a full mouth rehabilitation. Sometimes referred to as an FMR, full mouth rehabilitation. What that is, is we start to talk about the entire mouth, and how do we take it from the broken down and worn state where it is back to the aesthetic, fully functional, full-size teeth that we have all come to expect in what we consider a beautiful and natural smile. A lot of the times for folks it will involve either crowns or veneers of some sort, and it just really depends on whether or not we're addressing simply a cosmetic view where structurally everything's sound and we have a good appearance. It's just maybe the size of the shape of the teeth that we're trying to change and address, or maybe we've got teeth that have a lot of cavities or maybe they're broken, or maybe they're very worn. And so, in that case, a lot of times we'll use a crown on pretty much every single tooth, and even a combination thereof, some teeth will get crowned, some teeth will get veneers. But a full mouth rehabilitation really allows us fine control over the size of the teeth, the shape of the teeth, the color of the teeth and the function of the teeth. How well they come together, where they come together. How they're oriented, what they look like, How do they complement your face? How are they oriented in your face? How much tooth do you want to show? Do you not want to show? It really allows us to address almost every single concern. You know, we had my patient Lupe. He had worn his teeth down due to his grinding from stress, from life, from all of these different things. He'd had trauma to his teeth when he was young. And so those factors all contributed to now where his teeth were very worn. And he didn't show them when he smiled. He didn't show them when he talked. He really didn't . . . I mean, he really had to smile big for you to see his teeth, and they didn't match or complement his face in the beginning, because he'd worn them so much. Now he's able to laugh and smile and have those as part of his self, his natural self, and his teeth complement his smile again, they complement his face, and that's been a huge transformation for him. For our patients, they usually come in and we'll have a consultation. We'll identify is that appropriate for them. What are their aesthetic goals and their functional goals, and then we make a custom treatment plan, and we actually will have my lab technician wax up what their teeth will look like, the new shape, the new size, all of that so that then we print that on our 3D printer, and we're able to then use that when we talk with our patients so that they actually have something that they can hold in their hands that says, "Okay, this is where I was, this is where I'm going to be," and they're able to compare apples to apples truly. And then once they're ready to go, we are able to do it is as few as two to three appointments, or we can stretch it out. Most of the time though folks really don't want to stretch out their treatment. They want to get it done as quick as possible. Whatever the time constraints are, whatever their personal constraints are, and whatever their budgetary constraints are. Everybody has a budget. And so I've worked very hard to develop techniques and methods that allow us to break up a very complex and sometimes expensive treatment into bite-size pieces to where now we're able to not only get you to where you're functioning and you're happy and you've seen what it could be, but it's all with temporary material. And then we take and we slowly transition you from that into a fully finished rehabilitation. For those patients who are concerned with worn teeth or broken teeth or simply maybe the aesthetics of you know, you have healthy teeth, but you're interested to see could my smile be brighter? Could it be more youthful? Could I fix minor chips or spaces, gaps? Things like that, any aesthetic concerns, we always encourage our patients, "Hey, come have a conversation with us. We'd love to talk about what your concerns are, and how we can help to improve them and address them in a way that fits your budget and your schedule."