Completing Your Smile Makeover
It’s time to put the twinkle on your new Hollywood smile, the smile you’ve been dreaming about, and that starts with your “seat date.”
As much as we’d like to explain to you why it’s called a “seat date,” neither Dr. Jill Wade nor Dr. Jodi Danna seem to know why they’ve prescribed this momentous occasion with this moniker, but it’s too late to change it now [enter shrug emoji here]. Health and beauty expert Laura Lewis-Edwards, unable to understand the moniker’s origin story either, would like a seat date of a different kind.
Back to your smile makeover…
You’ve been wearing your temporary smile for several weeks, getting accustomed to the gorgeous aesthetic and testing its functionality while your final set of teeth are being made by the laboratory. This single piece, made from your wax-up impressions, is one color—unlike your natural teeth—because the materials used to make your temporary smile only come in one color. However, according to Laura Lewis-Edwards, although the teeth are in one single piece of “equipment,” rather than individual teeth, she says, “it doesn’t look like it at all.” The reason it’s created as a single unit is because the dentists “want to make sure that your teeth don’t shift while you’re in your temporaries, so your crowns fit you,” explains Dr. Danna.
Now, it’s time to trade your trial smile for the real thing. By now, the dentists have perfected your new smile, even down to the variants in shades of color across every tooth. Because, yes, your teeth are different shades of white—Laura Lewis-Edwards has four shades across her teeth, something she found out during her procedures. Dr. Wade likens it to hair, saying, “we have highlights, we have lowlights…and we [the dentists] know how to make [your new teeth] look lifelike.” Otherwise, you run the risk of your teeth looking fake (yes, we see the irony in this statement) “if your teeth are all one color,” says Dr. Danna. “They’re going to look like Chiclets.” If you’re wondering what exactly a Chiclet is, it’s a rectangular-shaped gum, often colored white, that looks much like a tooth.
From Smile Trial to Smile Transformation
Once your realistic smile is completed in the laboratory, the dentist will remove your temporary smile, and most likely administer numbing medication to ensure you’re comfortable while they “irrigate [and] sterilize all of your gums, your teeth, and…put [your new teeth] in,” says Dr. Danna. This may induce a little anxiety for some, but rest assured, the dentists at Stonebriar Smile Design have “excellent numbing techniques,” boasts Dr. Wade. They even offer conscious sedation, which, admittedly, has pros and cons. The obvious benefit is a comfortable procedure, sans pain and anxiety. However, the con is that the dentists can’t check your bite to ensure everything is aligned, nor can you give your opinion about the look and feel of your smile before it’s permanently cemented in, leaving no room for change at that stage.
This is one area where the benefits of their thorough preparation truly comes into play. In the case of sedation, the diagnostic wax-up is the most important tool to ensure your final smile is perfect, mimicking your temporary unit exactly, including your bite. They also have an electronic bite machine, called a T-Scan, which tells the dentists how many pounds of pressure you’re putting on each tooth. The sensor in the device, which they place in your mouth, allows them to make sure your bite is even across the entirety of your mouth. This is important because an uneven bite, whether veneers, crowns, or even your natural teeth, can, and most likely will, cause damage. It’s so paramount, in fact, that “a lot of times…the laboratory that you use, they will not warranty your crowns unless [you] have a bite guard,” Dr. Danna explains. So, it’s worth noting that your new smile has a required accessory: a night guard, also called a bite guard.
Finally, your Hollywood smile is firmly in place, and as part of their process, Dr. Wade and Dr. Danna will display photos of your teeth before your makeover and the finished result— making for a powerful visual comparison. They even take you outside to have a look at your smile just to assure it looks as good in natural light as it does in fluorescent light and that all the specifics (and the twinkles) are in the right place.
Click here to watch this episode of the Beyond Face Value Show on YouTube with co-host Laura Lewis-Edwards.
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