Dental Implants Case Studies

When Ardith came to us she was in a lot of pain.  She had difficulty chewing, as she put it, her chewing was "slow".  Function and comfort were her main concerns.  She was also unhappy with the appearance of her teeth, we could not get her to smile for her photo on her first visit.

CASE STUDIES--Ardith

 
Ardith had had a lot of dental work over the years.  When she came to see us she was using denture adhesive every morning to hold in the failing crowns on her two upper front teeth.  She had severe decay on her lower front tooth as well.  It shows up in this photo as the severely discolored tooth.  We recommended extracting that lower front tooth.
Ardith was missing all of her back teeth on the lower right.  She had to have them all extracted due to severe decay and infection.  She was unable to chew on this side at all due to the missing teeth.  Although she had back teeth on the top, they also were severly decayed.  We recommended extracting these upper teeth due to the extensive decay.
Ardith had decay around all of her lower back teeth on the left side.  She had one tooth on the lower left, and one tooth on the upper left that were severely decayed.  All that was left of these teeth was the root.  We recommended removing both of those teeth.

Here you can see the decay on Ardith's     upper back teeth.  It showes up as dark             
shadowed areas.  We extracted her back
two molars, and were able to save the other
two back teeth by removing the decay and
placing crowns on them.

Here you can see the root tips on the upper and
lower that we did extract.  We were able to
remove the decay from the rest of her lower
teeth.  We placed a non-removable bridge to fill in the space from the extracted lower tooth and to seal and
cover the two teeth beside it.

Ardith had severe decay on her lower front tooth. We recommended extracting that tooth and replacing it with an implant.  We placed the implant on the same day as the extraction of her natural tooth and then covered it with a temporary crown so it would look no different than a natural tooth while the implant healed.

click here to see surgery photo
Here you can see the final result of the work
we did for Ardith on her back teeth on the
right side.  We were able to save two of her
four back teeth on the upper by removing the
decay and placing crowns on these teeth.  We added a pontic to her lower right side which
would serve in place of her missing premolar.  This gave Ardith the ability to chew on the right side.
 Here you can see the final result of the work
we did for Ardith on the back teeth on the left
side.  Because her lower right molars had
marginal decay, we were able to save them by removing the decay and placing crowns. We placed a non-removable bridge to fill in the space where the extrated root tip was on the lower left. On the upper we placed two implants to replace the lost molars.  This maximized Ardith's function on the left side.
Here is a close up of Ardith's smile after treatment.  We replaced all of her front teeth on the top with a non-removable bridge, placed some fillings on her lower front teeth and a crown on the implant we replaced the lower front tooth with.
Ardith was very happy with her final result.  We had no problem getting her to smile for her final photo.  More importantly we were able to restore function for Ardith which was her main concern.  She elected to have her major work completed while under I.V. Sleep.  This allowed us to complete her work without her feeling or remembering the visit.