What Is Your Smile Worth?
If a smile is worth a thousand words, yours should say that you’re healthy, confident, happy.
Cosmetic dentistry, or what we at Stonebriar Smile Design like to call “smile designs”—because it’s all in a name, right?—is the best part of the job for the dentists in our practice. We love transforming tired, sad smiles and “making them blossom into what [people have] always wanted…for themselves,” attests Dr. Jodi Danna.
Best friends since their first days of dental school, Dr. Jill Wade and Dr. Jodi Danna, both practitioners at Stonebriar Smile Design, can hardly contain their excitement around cosmetic dentistry, often saying it’s one of their favorite areas of the field. They attribute their smile enthusiasm to their robust education, having trained under the Advanced Education in General Dentistry (AEGD) program, which not all dental students take on. While all aspiring dentists go through dental school, follow a set curriculum, and learn procedures necessary for general dentistry, “you have to make the decision about what you want to do once you get out,” says Dr. Danna. “For us, it was about the cosmetics, the wellness portion of [dentistry], and we went through extra training to get through that.”
This educational “edge” gave Dr. Danna and Dr. Wade extensive training in comprehensive dentistry, which they could only gain through the schools at that time, and once they were done, they still had to “return to the school, specifically on weekends, where [they] brought in patients…doing cosmetic dentistry together” alongside doctors who had 15–20 years of professional advancement in their field.
Running those programs during their residency, “really worked out to our benefit,” says Dr. Danna. “Because not only did we get the education afterwards as far as the didactic portion of [dentistry], but we were hands-on with these doctors that are world-renowned dentists, and nobody got that experience.” What Dr. Jodi Danna considers “luck,” the consumer—i.e., her patients and colleagues—would consider her well-trained. Dr. Wade and Dr. Danna’s training was so advanced, in fact, that “in order…to be a fellow of the Academy of General Dentists, we had to wait five years because we had had so much education postgraduate,” explains Dr. Danna. In consideration of their training, Dr. Wade elaborates by pointing out that “not every dentist is capable of doing all of this comprehensive dentistry,” advising consumers to do their homework and “really look at [dentist’s] portfolios and be sure that they actually do have a lot of experience [performing] cosmetic dentistry.
A smile isn’t just a smile, and the dentists at Stonebriar Smile Design have changed lives by designing and creating beautiful smiles, which, in a way, cements them into the lives of the people they treat. “Every memory of that person, from that moment on…every photo, every wedding…that smile design becomes part of who you are,” gushes Dr. Wade. “It’s really life-changing.”
Considering the level of change you can undergo with cosmetic dentistry, trusting that your doctor has the proper training is paramount. Dr. Danna provides some comfort in saying that “it’s not wrong for you to go into a doctor’s office and ask for before-and-after photos.” She also encourages you to ask any dentist you’re considering to estimate the amount of cosmetic procedures they’ve performed. These elements will give you a better scope of their experience. Of course, she also says location should not be a hindrance for you not to visit Stonebriar Smile Design, even if you don’t live in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) metroplex area, as some patients of the practice do not, coming from all over.
Why Have Cosmetic Dental Procedures
There are many reasons you might decide to have a cosmetic dental procedure, and according to the dentists at Stonebriar Smile Design, they’ve never had a patient regret coming to them for their chosen enhancements. In fact, they’ve often heard people say that they wished they’d done it sooner. “Everybody’s different,” says Dr. Wade. “Everybody looks different, everybody wants something different…[and] functionally, needs something different.” She considers it part of her job to help guide you in your decisions regarding procedures, taking into account what you like and don’t like, your unique circumstances, the research you’ve done for yourself, and even down to what you do for a living, because your smile design can’t be unique to you without your input.
With that in mind, Dr. Wade states that it is necessary for you to have a conversation with your dentist “to give you the best possible scenario moving forward” and that it should be a partnership between you both, where you really share the things you like and you don’t like about your smile. Out of those conversations, that partnership with your dentist, you come up with and agree on “a solution that fits you, your lifestyle, your wants and needs, and…your pocketbook,” Dr. Wade continues. Because the dentists at Stonebriar work with other specialists to bring you comprehensive dentistry, or wellness dentistry, they’re constantly coordinating and working with doctors and dentists who specialize in other areas, including gum specialists, oral surgeons, and lab techs who create the smiles they design, and that’s just to name a few.
It’s important to recognize that what may look good on someone else, may not work or look the same on you. Dr. Danna explains that preconceived ideas about the smile you want might not be practical for your use or align with your features, whether your goal is to have a bigger smile, a brighter smile, the whitest possible smile, or something akin to what you’ve seen on someone in the public eye. When designing your custom smile, she considers many of your unique traits: the type of makeup that you wear, the color of your skin, and most importantly, the functionality of your new smile, among other things. “It’s very intricate as far as making those decisions,” she says. So, when you are investing in a new smile design, you want to consider the end result, and while Dr. Wade and Dr. Danna want to give you the smile you’ve hoped and dreamed of, they’re also mindful that you are making a huge investment not only in your smile but your life and lifestyle. Ultimately, they want that investment to last as long as possible and ensure that the function as well as the cosmetic aspect of your smile align with your ideals.
In terms of what that investment is depends on what you choose to do and what you’re trying to accomplish, and the range of the investment in your oral health or a new smile design will greatly vary. When considering a smile design, cost comes down to how many teeth your dentist services, which can cost between $1,500 to $2,500 per tooth. Of course, these are general dollar amounts, averaged according to procedure and providers across the United States.
Is Cosmetic Dentistry Right for You
According to Dr. Danna, everybody’s a candidate for cosmetic dentistry, with the caveat that it depends on what you’re a candidate for.
Stonebriar Smile Design is constantly evolving—that includes their technology—and in addition to their education and training, Dr. Wade and Dr. Danna each have to do 75 hours of continuing education every year for which they continue to focus on cosmetic dentistry and custom smile designs. Because they’ve chosen to focus so heavily in this area of dentistry, and have practiced for a number of years, they’ve seen firsthand “the amazing results people get and what that does to them both on the inside and on the outside,” says Dr. Wade, and how it really changes someone. A good example of that very change comes from their own health and beauty expert, Laura Lewis-Edwards, who explains that she became a young widow when her daughters—who are now adults—were only six and three years old. Soon thereafter, she got the opportunity to be on television, and when she “went on television for the first time, [she] had nice teeth, but [her] confidence was down.” Following that, Laura Lewis-Edwards had veneers done, and although “they were really pretty,” as she puts it, and she felt “more confident,” she says they just weren’t what she really wanted and didn’t hold up very well.
Upon meeting Dr. Jodi Danna, they decided, together, to redo her veneers and the change, according to Laura, was an instant boost in confidence. She says she felt so much better about herself having had the veneers refined and customized perfectly for her mouth, her face, and her facial structure. Additionally, because Laura Lewis-Edwards has sensitive teeth, she got the added benefit of protection from having new veneers, likening it to having “armor on her teeth.” She’s so delighted with the procedures she’s had done by Dr. Danna and Stonebriar Smile Design team that she’s having veneers put on her lower teeth as well.
Using a combination of face-to-face meetings and conversations, which they love, and technologies such as SmileFy, AI, diagnostic wax-up technology, and good not-so-old-fashioned photography, they assess each patient on an individual basis. Zoom, or teledentistry, consultations are also available for initial consultations, and the dentists at Stonebriar Smile Design really strive to get to know you and understand your needs and desires while also providing examples of what your ideal smile will look like on your face—something for which the diagnostic wax-up can provide a perfect example. This personalized experience has not only allowed Dr. Jill Wade and Dr. Jodi Danna to obtain patients but also retain them, some of whom have been with them in excess of 30 years. They want you to be more than proud of your smile, they want you to beam because of the care you’ve received, coming back again and again.
Their patient care knows no boundaries, having treated patients as young as six years old and also young adults, some of whom have had veneers—because they’re not just for the elderly. They’ve treated women, men, and those who have more life experience, becoming more than just their dentist but part of their patients’ world and lives.
So, if you’re considering a cosmetic procedure or you want a shiny, new smile, contact Stonebriar Smile Design and find out what we can do for you. Need more incentive? Well, consider this: Dr. Danna recently restored a smile to a man who, let’s just say, has many years of life experience and who found himself single in all his wisdom. He wanted to dive back into the dating world and decided to get a smile makeover. He left the office in the afternoon with his brand-new smile, and by that same evening, he was out on a date.
Need a little more motivation? Your smile is linked to confidence, whether in yourself or perceived by others. Dr. Jill Wade calls this a “power smile.” She’s seen “people get jobs, get promotions because they got their power smiles [back].” If that’s not enough for you, Dr. Wade professes to have had—in one year—four unmarried, single men get custom smile designs at Stonebriar Smile Design, “and all four of them, by the end of the year, either were married or engaged to be married,” she says emphatically.
Click here to watch this episode of the Beyond Face Value Show on YouTube with co-host Laura Lewis-Edwards.
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