Try On Your New Smile
Before it's Yours
Know the Final Outcome of Restorative Dental Work With an Oral Mock-Up
By Rudolf Morgan, DMD, MSD, PLLC

Your smile is unique and says a lot about you. Are you considering cosmetic or restorative dentistry options like veneers or crowns for yourself, a friend, or a family member? If you are, wouldn't it be great to be able to try on the new smile, before owning it?

Today increasing numbers of dental offices offer techniques including digital photography, computer imaging, and dental models to give you a better idea of what a proposed dental treatment will look like. But just like buying clothing, fine wine, or a car, it's usually not enough to only see what something looks like from the outside -discerning individuals want to try on, taste test, or test drive products before they invest in owning them. The same is true for our smiles. That's why specialized dental offices have now made it possible for people to literally try on a model of their proposed cosmetic or restorative treatment using a state-of-the-art technique: the oral mock-up.

The most basic aid for showing someone what cosmetic or restorative dental work can achieve is before and after images of others success stories. To personalize the photographic experience and help patients imagine what they will look like after their own esthetic dental work, portrait photographs can be digitally manipulated to simulate an improved smile. Most often, however, tooth images used for this purpose are from stock photos, which can not necessarily be customized for the patient's case. Furthermore, the 2-dimensional picture may actually be difficult or impossible to deliver in reality, due to position or size of existing teeth or other unknown factors. So, while a photo may be worth a thousand words, when it comes to dentistry it is not an accurate experience of what dental work will look and feel like when complete.

Another process that helps patients understand and visualize prospective dental work is the dental model wax-up. The dentist takes an impression of the existing teeth and uses it to create a plaster cast, and also takes photographs of the existing teeth and their correlation to the patient's smile. In the lab the shape of the teeth on the cast can be built up with wax and carved as desired. This is a very useful process, as it allows both dentist and patient to see and make changes to the proposed treatment in 3-dimensional form.

By using the photo and model wax-up technique a patient may get a better idea of what to expect yet still not truly know what the result will be until the final crowns or veneers are complete and orally placed. By then, however, if any change is needed, in most cases the work must be redone - a time-consuming, disappointing (and expensive) scenario that both parties very much prefer to prevent.

The Oral Mock-up: The Closest to the Real Deal

So, how could you "try on your new smile" even before it is yours? There is only one technique that allows a patient to have the benefit of this experience: the oral mock-up. An oral mock-up offers the best opportunity for a patient to see in advance what they will look and feel like once their restorative treatment is completed. It also allows the patient and dentist to make very specific adjustments to the work before it is final. To most adequately address the patient's desires and manage expectations, it is best for both patient and practitioner to have this precise simulation of the final product. This is especially true when the patient is receiving treatment that involves multiple teeth or frontal dentition that is visible during conversation and smiling.

What are the steps to the oral mock-up process? Along with taking digital photos for reference, the dentist will take an impression and create the plaster cast of the patient's teeth and wax-up 3-D model based on the proposed treatment. This wax-on-plaster model is the blueprint, which serves as a template. Amazingly, the dentist will transfer this blueprint using tooth-colored composite materials on top of existing teeth. This is a temporary but true-to-life simulation of the final crowns or veneers color and shape.

This model is created so that it can be transferred into the patient's mouth without any permanent change to the existing teeth, enabling a realistic, personal experience of the proposed final product. (This is possible in most cases, except in more rare situations where the patient's teeth must be prepared to accommodate the new shape of the proposed final product.) With the oral mock-up in place, the patient can immediately and directly sense changes in shape and color. This oral mock-up can be removed or worn for a period of time to help in decision-making; and the best news is that changes, large and small, can still be addressed before the final work is done in ceramic and permanently bonded to the teeth.

Dental offices that are best suited to provide oral mock-ups are those with in-house labs. The process can be completed with less turnaround time and waiting, allowing the patient to have their mock-up, in many cases, in 1 to 2 visits depending upon the complexity of the treatment. The final copy of the patient-approved design will be created with exacting attention to precise details by a skilled technician using state-of-the-art materials and technique. The outcome will not be a surprise, but the welcome completion of well-managed expectations - all the more reason to smile.

For more information on oral mock-ups visit www.DrRudolfMorgan.com.