Smile Makeovers

SMILE MAKEOVER

Does Your Smile...Match Your Style?

Or Not!

Are you embarrassed by your smile or are you concerned about the negative impact it makes on people you meet?

A smile makeover can be a life changing event. Your smile is a major means of communicating your emotions and attitudes toward others. If that 'other' is a boss or coworker, the way you express yourself to them can be vital to your career. If it involves family or just social interactions with friends the appearance of your smile will attract people toward you or quietly push them away. The allure of a 'Hollywood' smile is fact not fiction; their beautiful smiles attract others toward them. Let yours do the same with a CDE Smile artfully created by Dr. Prus.

Having a beautiful smile builds confidence by the mere fact people will be attracted to you. That confidence will build on itself with each returned smile and you will be changed by it for the better. You will know, feel and enjoy that positive energy and you will own it. Not having it will be a constant source of concern and embarrassment. In a world that has put so much importance on how we present ourselves, owning the smile that owns the room has immense value. Co-workers more easily smile back at you. Friends quickly welcome you. Family are all too happy to be with you. All because of your smile. If that is not you, you can make that smile your smile.

Every smile makeover is different. It all depends on what are the problems that make your smile unattractive.Visit the Smile Gallery to see examples of every type of smile makeover and reconstructive dental care.

How is it Accomplished

Aesthetic smile makeovers can use any and all disciplines in cosmetic dentistry:

Ceramic restorations: all-ceramic crowns, veneers, inlays and onlays that redesign the teeth to harmoniously blend with the various dimensions of facial aesthetics. Subtle and sophisticated applications of dental ceramics can be crafted to elegantly and naturally flow within the symmetry of your face in a seamless blend to create the smile that is perfect for you.
Bonded in-office tooth colored fillings
Selective recontouring of tooth shapes
Selective soft tissue (gum/gingiva) and hard tissue (bone) contouring for visual balance; e.g. gingival grafts and crown lengthening
Fixed restorations: crowns, bridges, implants)
Removable prostheses (dentures)
Tooth whitening (bleaching) procedures: KOR, Opalescence
Orthodontics: limited anterior movement (Inman Aligner); braces or clear aligner trays for full mouth orthodontics
Orthognathics: jaw surgery to correct misalignment of the bones of the face and jaws

It is critical that a dentist knows exactly what processes are required to achieve the desired results as well as which ones are not. If your dentist is not aware of what each option can do for you, you may end up receiving the wrong aesthetic dental care. Sometimes it is the simplest approach that creates the best result, such as minor anterior tooth movement (Inman Aligner) or whitening (KOR, Opalescence). Going beyond the K-I-S-S rule can actually cause unnecessary damage to a smile, such as cutting teeth down for crowns when minimal or no prep, additive porcelain restorations are the best answer.

In today's modern dental approaches to tooth preservation, it is important to understand concepts like tooth flexure, ceramic modulus of elasticity and fracture resistance and and the hydrodynamic nature of the tooth and its effect on long-term bonded ceramic restorations. These details allows your dentist to ensure your smile makeover is perfect, not just on day one, but over years of use. Dr. Prus spent many years with research colleagues learning these rather 'behind the scenes' details because he knew they made a significant impact on the durability of everyday dental procedures.

The benefit is that each of his patients will receive the best possible restorations when remaking their smile. He has spent most of his career perfecting his approach to rebuilding smiles and reconstructing broken down mouths to bring them back to a state of health and beauty. He has witnessed successful cases that have lasted not years but decades. That is what he strives for with each patient he treats.

What is the Process

Creating a Smile at CDE

Dr. Prus is very exacting when creating a smile that makes you appear younger, healthier, more appealing, and, of course, sexier, and totally matches your face, your emotions and your style. A smile makeover at every level can be an advanced cosmetic dental treatment. It not only aesthetically changes the teeth but it also remakes your smile in harmony with your entire face. Properly done, it will completely energize and beautify your smile and revitalize your personality (see finished cases below; more details for each case in appropriate sections).

Smile makeovers are best performed as a multi-step process. To ensure that you receive the smile of your dreams Dr. Prus follows these steps after an initial consultation appointment during which he will review your medical and dental histories, your desires for your mouth and any concerns you may have:

First appointment:

Full oral examination with xrays, photographs and models

Full discussion of patient’s needs and values
Consult with the patient and create an overall treatment plan. This does not attempt to clarify every step and procedure but is an overview of the course of action

Second appointment:

Create a diagnostic wax-up (DWU) (see below) which will eventually become the finished design

Plan a course of treatment best suited for patient in accordance with the DWU
Initiate any preliminary cosmetic procedures, such as minor tooth movement, whitening and preventive periodontal therapy

Third appointment and beyond:

Prepare the teeth if necessary and place temporary restorations based on wax-up design to assess function, form, fit and aesthetics
Do a final dress rehearsal of the temps to assess aesthetics, function and comfort
Make a detailed impression of the temps for the ceramist to follow precisely ensuring the patient receives exactly what they want
Create and place final restorations based on the idealized temporary restorations
Celebrate by smiling consistently

This process is designed to ensure each patient gets exactly what they were expecting by eliminating uncertainty and unpredictable results. Call the Center for Dental Excellence today for your complementary cosmetic consultation and start your process of reinventing who you are and who you can be.

How Long Can a Smile Makeover Last

A smile makeover can last most of a lifetime. It depends on several important factors:

Function: this is in the control of the dentist. If it is in a balanced functional harmony that does not put excess stress on any part, a smile makeover can last decades.
Oral Health & Oral Habits : this is mostly in the control of the patient. Predominantly it relates to oral home care as well as bodily home care. Health enhances long lasting restorations. Clean teeth, with no plaque, which is acidic, will last. Eliminating noxious chemicals of any source (nicotine, recreational drugs, medicines, highly acidic foods (citric foods--lemons, limes) helps. Excessive forces placed on teeth and restorations (clenching/grinding) will wear them down and break them, just like anything else you own that you use aggressively
Bodily Health: many illnesses with their associated medicines are damaging to the mouth and its components (e.g. Diabetes, Cancer therapy)

A Beautiful Smile is in Harmony

Why are some smiles so beautiful and others just look wrong?

The most important characteristic in creating a beautiful, younger, yet natural looking smile is by paying close attention to all the details of health and facial harmony. The following lists treatment options used in creating harmony. A harmonious smile is in balance in these ways:

Harmony in health: inflamed gingival tissues are never attractive and speak volumes about your overall health. It is very easy to attain and maintain total oral health by following the home care protocols the Dr. Prus teaches his patients at CDE
Harmony in position: Beautifully shaped and colored teeth may only need to be straightened ( Inman Aligner; orthodontics—Invisalign) to make a dramatic impact. There are many variations on this aspect of dental aesthetics.
Harmony in Color: all else being perfect, tooth whitening can totally elevate a smile to WOW status. Or it may be the first of several steps to recreate a youthful smile. If you suffer from discoloration from (more…) foods they whiten easily. Naturally yellow or gray teeth are internally colored (not stained) and are harder to whiten. Medicines can severely stain teeth and require the greatest degree of whitening. Basic rule: professional whitening materials are stronger and work faster than OTC materials.
Harmony tooth Shape and Texture: When teeth are disfigured from wear or discolored, old fillings or the teeth just have unusual shapes your best options may be in placing all-porcelain restorations.
All-porcelain restorations (veneers or crowns) are the ideal solution for most people. In some situations, like severe wear and chipping, the teeth may not need any cutting. The quality of the final result is a matter of close collaboration between the patient, the dentist and the cosmetically trained lab technician and there are often numerous approaches to solve each situation
- Precise recontouring: if your teeth are slightly chipped and worn, a simple reshaping of the edges can make it younger looking and more beautiful.
- Teeth with flat, straight edges appear more worn, thus 'older' than teeth with softer, more rounded edges.

Harmony between the teeth, lips and gums: a very gummy smile is very unattractive; just so with teeth that do not show at all when talking or smiling (my own teeth were invisible before my smile was remade). All these can be corrected in a variety of ways:

Excess gums display: if it is only due to too much soft tissue, they can be carefully raised to show less then veneers can be made to re-create the ideal balance. It may also be due to the teeth positions being too low. Orthodontics can correct that. If the entire structure of the face is too long for the lips to cover, a surgical orthognathic procedure will put them in perfect balance.
Insufficient tooth display: If the gum display is satisfactory but the teeth do not display themselves properly then just redesigning the size, shape and position of the teeth relative to the gums and lips with veneers or crowns is all that is needed. This is one of the most common procedures in smile makeovers.

Harmony between the tooth shape and your face: Teeth with a round profile do not work with a square or tapered facial profile. The teeth and face profiles must be similar to blend successfully. The two central incisors, if turned upside down, will look similar to the outer profile of the face. This is a part of nature that makes a beautiful face wonderful to see.
Harmony with your Style: In other words, “Does Your Smile…Match Your Style?”^© We each have our own image of ourselves, our personalities. We may love it or we may hate it and want to change it. How your teeth measure up to that evaluation is an important subjective component in assessing the beauty of your smile, but will have the greatest impact on your self confidence. You have to be comfortable within yourself about how you look.
Harmony in Function: without this component all the efforts in creating a beautiful smile will be short lived and lose their long-lived potential. There are two main areas of the mouth that dictate harmony in function: the balanced function of the biting surfaces of the molars, the pillars of the dental house; the interaction of the cuspids in side to side movement of the lower jaw.

The durability of the biting surface of the molars prevents premature wear of all the teeth anterior (in front of) to them.
The proper relationship of the upper and lower canine (cuspid) teeth prevents the excessive wear of all the other teeth in front and back of them in side to side movement (chewing, grinding). This is called canine guidance

Styling a Smile at CDE

How will Dr. Prus help you design the smile that matches your style?

Once you express your overall desires for your smile, he will help guide your decision by making a thorough review of an album of many smile types, helping you understand how each style might look in your own mouth. Ideally if the patient has a photo of their smile that they like at some point of their life, they should bring it. Finally Dr. Prus will take a video of you laughing, talking and expressing yourself in everyday conversation.
Once a game plan is developed with the patient, these images are emailed to his lab technician who is an expert in creating an mock-up design in wax (diagnostic wax-up) that will reflect your aesthetic wishes. Equally important this wax-up will be functionally correct. That ensures it will not break or chip in normal use.
Depending on the dynamics of your case, you may be able to 'try on' your smile by fitting a resin replica of the wax-up directly over your teeth. If not approved it is returned for design changes to make it perfect for you. If approved, the teeth are then prepped as needed to receive the temporary replicas of the final smile. This works well when your teeth have been worn and are short and need to be rebuilt taller.

The entire process will confirm to you that you are in the best hands for your cosmetic dentistry at CDE . It creates the bond of trust between the patient and Dr. Prus that is so vital for a successful and beautiful result. We all want you to enjoy the experience.

Smile Makeovers

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