As we gather and cherish the company of loved ones over sumptuous food and drinks, we can’t thank you enough for the opportunity to extent our care to you - our patients. It has been a tremendous blessings for our team, and we look forward to many more years of continued professional relation with you. Have a blessed season!
What is a wax up?
Before I begin…It has been a whirlwind of a year due to my complex travel schedule. I spent this past Spring and Summer traveling to Germany twice, and most recently to Romania to stay updated on the world of implantology, digital dentistry, and dental photography. Most of the digital dental technology development and manufacturing begins in Europe, and I wanted to learn from the best resources available. I am back, and will continue to update this blog as well as my Instagram page to bring you the latest information on my work, in order to help you make confident decisions when seeking dental care for you and your loved ones.
I saw a patient for a cosmetic consultation this past week, and her question is the topic for this blog post: When do you do a wax up?
A wax up is a design of as little as one tooth, or as many as all the teeth in the smile. A wax up is done to modify the size, shape, contour of the teeth prior to prepping the teeth in the mouth for restorations. In the case below you will see a wax up of a design to replace old porcelain veneers and crowns that the patient wanted me to change out. In this particular case “length” was ok for the patient, so the wax up was done to refine shape and surface characteristics which are important in making the porcelain veneers look real. Natural teeth are not perfectly flat, and we need to transfer those details onto the final restoration.
The colors of the wax is the preference of the technician working on the case. Some prefer a white wax because they mimic white teeth. Some prefer colored wax because details show up very well with colored wax.
Depending on the needs of the case, the wax up will tell us how much tooth structure reduction is necessary to achieve the ideal out come of the case. For example, a tooth that needs to be brought out to be more even with the arch form would need less reduction than a tooth that is stuck out in the arch form and needs to be brought inwards. Sometime, by seeing the wax up, the patient can visualize why orthodontic would be an option to even out the arch form in order to minimize the need for more significant tooth reduction as well as to minimize the number of teeth that need to be treated.
Just as an architect would rely on a blue print to build a house, a wax up design is our blue print in dental reconstruction. In the future you will see more and more cases being done with digital wax up using CAD software instead of traditional hand waxing. I will post a digital wax up case later.
A wax up design to restore a previously done smile with 10 upper teeth and 6 lower teeth.
Note the details in the surface texture. They are very visually defined in wax, but in the final porcelain they are very subtle and so important in light reflection to make the restoration look real.
Enhancement of lower anterior teeth in wax.
Happy Mother’s Day
May your day be blessed with beautiful memories!
Your Teeth on Drugs!
Recreational drug use creates multiple problems for people’s teeth. Many drugs can cause the patient to grind their teeth uncontrollably. Methamphetamine, Ecstasy, Cocaine, and Heroin have all been known to trigger uncontrolled grinding for the drug user. On natural teeth, the grinding can create wear patterns, pitting on the biting surfaces, concave wedges on the root surfaces, and fractures. On restorations such as crowns and veneers, teeth grinding can cause porcelain to fracture. In worse cases, severe grinding can even cause problems with implants and crowns or prosthesis attached onto the implants.
Some drugs also can cause rapid decays of the teeth due to their acidity or their side effects of causing dry mouth.
The mouth is a dynamic system which can be affected by many factors. It does not matter how good a natural dentition is or how well restorations have been done, uncontrolled grinding is a force to be reckoned with. Recreational drugs not only can affect your systemic health, they also will destroy your teeth . As dentists we can help restore teeth, but not when other factors such as recreational drug use is involved.
Cosmetic Options for the Young Dentition
For the young dentition, conservative treatments such as teeth whitening and bondings are great options to help enhance a smile. In the case below the patient spent sometime whitening his teeth with the take-home kit we prescribed. After the teeth have lightened up to a shade where the patient was happy with, we used resin filling materials of various shades to bond to his front teeth. Chips and gaps can easily be filled in without any removal of tooth structure.
The “After” smile looks beautiful in person, and at conversational distance it is near impossible to detect where the bondings were placed.
Click on the photos below to see the transition.
