Fun Fun Fun! Single-visit porcelain crowns with CEREC 3D!

OK, I know that most people don’t think that going to the dentist is fun, but it sure can be a lot more interesting than it used to be for sure.  The advent of digital dentistry, particularly CAD/CAM dentistry that allows us to make all-porcelain crowns in just 1 visit, is just pretty darn cool, and that’s even according to my patients who’ve benefited from it.  We brought the CEREC 3D system into our office at the end of December 2007, and in that time we’re approaching our 200th CEREC crown.   In the beginning, I didn’t take many pictures because I was really concentrating on learning how to make the crowns beautiful, fit well, and happen smoothly and quickly.  Now that we’ve become more comfortable with the technology, I’m taking the time to really take quality photos to show off just what we can do, and yesterday just was the perfect opportunity.

This gentleman had these porcelain-to-metal crowns placed about 4-5 years ago, but he is a major grinder and started breaking the porcelain off within a year.  That’s one of the potential problems of adding porcelain on to metal like that.  They obviously needed to be replaced, and he drove all the way from Asheville, NC for us to do this in 1 appointment; since we clearly needed very strong porcelain, we chose EMAX, which has truly remarkable strength.  Take a look and see the results for yourself after the crowns were glazed in our oven:

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Yet ANOTHER cracked tooth due to bruxism (grinding/clenching)

I just can’t say it enough – if you grind your teeth, you need a properly made and professionally adjusted nightguard!

Perfect situation this morning: a young lady of only 29 years age came in for a root canal and crown on a lower molar because of a badly cracked tooth.  It didn’t look all that bad on the outside, and seeing how small the previous filling was, you’d really think that the chances of this are practically non-existent……..but you’d be wrong. Take a look:

A Badly Cracked Tooth From Grinding/Clenching

And let me tell you – it is NOT a coincidence that this young lady has suffered from chronic migraines for years, but we haven’t addressed that for her quite yet.  First we had to get her out of the terrible pain she had every time she bit down.

If you grind or clench your teeth (and notice that this tooth doesn’t even look worn down or flattened), please be willing to spend a little money, even if your insurance doesn’t cover it.  It could literally save you THOUSANDS of dollars in dental treatment, lots of time in the dentist’s chair, and even pain.

Yes – single-visit crowns can be beautiful!

Obviously, the single biggest advantage for patients with our CEREC machine is the ability to have beautiful, all-porcelain restorations completed in a single visit.  Here’s an example of how nice that can be.  This patient had 10 porcelain veneers done about 2 years ago; due to her grinding habit, she had knocked off and broken one of the veneers.  Rather than make a yucky impression and send it to the lab, while she had to wait several weeks with a temporary veneer, we made it right in the office.  One visit porcelain veneer, no temporary, no second visit, and her smile was back to beautiful!  See if you can guess which one was done by us on CEREC and which were done by the lab?

A Beautiful 1-Visit Porcelain Veneer by Dr. Payet in Charlotte, NC

If need your any tooth fixed, not just if it’s a porcelain veneer, CEREC CAD/CAM can do it for you.  Call our office 704-364-7069 or Request an Appointment Online.

So I grind my teeth, Doc – what’s the big deal?

Many people grind their teeth.  Many people clench their teeth.  Many do both.  The worst part is, though, that many have no idea that they do it, or how much damage they’re doing to their teeth — or how much it could cost to fix.  Sadly, too, many dentists don’t do anything about it either.  Here are 2 examples of just how badly one can damage teeth by grinding/clenching.

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Teeth damaged by grinding & clenching become short, chipped, worn, jagged, sharp, and ugly

How teeth can look after years of grinding and clenching.

Look how uneven the teeth are as they’ve been ground down.  See the gum recession and the deep “notches” in the teeth?  These things are NOT caused just by growing older and our mouths aging.  It takes incredible force to wear down enamel, which is the hardest substance in your body.  But once you wear through enamel into the second tooth layer – dentin – that wears down much faster and the damage accelerates.

Both of these gentleman wanted better-looking smiles.  The first one was completed over 4 years ago; we are still in the process of completely rebuilding the mouth of the second gentleman.  Needless to say, it is very expensive to rebuild teeth like this.  Sadly, it could have been almost completely avoided if they had known about and used a nightguard years ago.

So if you think you grind your teeth – call us today!  Sure, your nightguard might cost several hundred dollars………but what is that compared to thousands and thousands of dollars in treatment and many hours of time in the dentist’s chair.  You’re investing in the future health of your mouth.

Don’t wait like these gentlemen did.  Call us at 704-364-7069 and make your appointment to have a nightguard made and protect your teeth!

Visit our Smiles by Payet Dentistry page on this for more information on the NTI-tss nightguard.

A Smile Makeover with Porcelain Veneers and Short-Term Braces

This will be the last cosmetic dentistry/Smile Makeover video that I will post for a little while, as I next want to devote some time to showing how destructive “Grinding” of the teeth can be and why it is NOT something that you should take lightly.  Bruxism/Parafunction (the general term for both grinding and clenching, which are 2 separate things) can cause major problems for patients, and often in ways not easily visible because it takes time to develop or they’re under the surface.  I believe this is an area of dentistry that is often neglected, and it only makes things worse for patients.

With that said, I do hope you enjoy the way we combined different kinds of treatments to achieve a dramatic Smile Makeover for Daniel, as visible in this video.

Don’t forget – if you want to see all of the videos for our practice, check out our YouTube channel: SmilesbyPayet.

Combination Porcelain Veneers and Short-Term Braces

Smiles by Payet Cosmetic Dentistry Video on YouTube

As a professional photographer on the side (I don’t plan on quitting my day job any time soon), I have a passion for both the taking of pictures and the digital developing/use of those pictures, and software today is so remarkable in how it can be used.  With increasing levels of integration among Photoshop programs and others, it is becoming increasingly easy to take the pictures, edit them as desired, and then quickly convert them into a usable format.  I will be adding more videos to both our Blog and to SmilesbyPayet.com in coming weeks, so stay tuned for more!

Smiles by Payet Cosmetic Dentistry

New Patient Education videos now in the office!

Oh, it feels so good to finally be able to announce this, as I’ve been working on it so hard for so many nights after my family has gone to bed, but FINALLY I have begun producing some new Patient Education videos to help explain a number of options that we offer by using pictures of many similar cases.

Over the last 4 years, I have amassed a catalog of about 38,000 digital photographs of the work that we do.  You can see my Photography Blog post on the subject of Patient Communication with Digital Photography for more info on how/why we take pictures of our work, but now I’m finally able to turn a lot of those photos into various video formats to highlight problems that many patients have, often without even realizing it, and to let our patients actually see what they can expect once the treatment is completed.  It’s really quite exciting!  We’re not talking about “stock” photography here, of work that someone else did.  EVERY SINGLE ONE of the pictures that you’ll see were taken by Dr. Payet (me), and every completed procedure was performed by Dr. Payet (me) and my Team.  (Hope you don’t mind me talking about myself in the 3rd person for a moment there; I was having a Bob Dole flashback after reading some political articles.  🙂

We’ll look forward to showing you these new videos when you come in!

Don’t have any of those videos in Web format quite yet, but keep an eye on our website, Smiles by Payet Dentistry, for them to begin appearing there within the next few weeks.  You’ll be able to see and understand so much more easily, I promise!

Six-Month Braces – Great Results — FAST

We just finished up this case today — doesn’t need much explanation, just that it took about 6 months and the patient was thrilled.  🙂

A dental patient of Dr. Charles Payet in Charlotte, NC, who's thrilled with her smile after 6-Month Braces.

What hides under old silver fillings?

As I’ve mentioned, there are 2 basic “philosophies” of dental care, although I didn’t really spell them out.  They are (approximately, please understand!):

1) Watch and wait until it it actually hurts or breaks,

OR

2) Diagnose and recommend treatment BEFORE it actually hurts or breaks.

As a general rule, at Smiles by Payet Dentistry, we follow the second philosophy.  The key to remember, though, is that it is ALWAYS up to YOU to decide when to actually proceed with treatment.  I’ll show you what I see by digital photography and x-rays, give you my recommendations, and then it’s up to you to decide what to do about them.  We understand that the treatment has to fit into your life – your budget, your schedule, your priorities.  I give you my word — I will NEVER pressure you into doing any treatment.  I MAY make some very strong recommendations and urge you to proceed with treatment so that you avoid pain, loss of teeth, or other complication, but it’s still your decision, and we promise to respect that.

One of the tricky parts of dentistry is this: we can’t see through old fillings and crowns and bridges, not even with digital x-rays, digital photography, not even with the Zeiss PICO dental microscope that I use.  We can only see things AROUND them.  And quite honestly, as much as I believe silver amalgam fillings are a perfectly acceptable treatment, I also believe that they hide a multitude of evils.  I already showed you the cracks that are often associated with big, old silver fillings, especially in patients who grind their teeth.  What I didn’t show you, though, is how much decay (cavity) can be hidden from us by old silver fillings.  They may not hurt, but it is not uncommon for there to be so much decay under them that a root canal becomes necessary when it’s all removed — and often times it can not be seen on x-rays!  This makes it frustrating for patients, can’t understand why we recommend replacing a filling with a new filling or a crown.

So along with examples of the beautiful dentistry that we provide, I’ll also regularly show you the problems we often encounter when treating teeth, which should help you, the patient, better understand the WHYs of our recommendations.

A perfect example: This lady had these fillings for many years, probably over 20.  The molar had just recently started bothering her a little with sensitivity to cold and sweets, but nothing serious.  The main reason she wanted them replaced was for appearance, though — the greyish color really showed through on the front of the teeth.  You’ll see that they don’t actually look all that bad to an untrained eye.  After seeing thousands and thousands of them, though, I had some idea of what to expect……..but even I didn’t expect the problem to be so extensive.

Oh YUCK!  See all that black crud?  That’s decay — mushy, soft, and definitely NOT healthy.  And this is fairly normal to find under 20+ year old fillings, to tell the truth.

Just some food for thought: maybe your dentist has recommended some treatment, perhaps to replace those silver fillings that have been there for 20-30 years, and maybe they’re not even bothering you, so you think, “Nah, I’ll just wait, doc.  Thanks but no thanks right now.”  Consider this: another 6 months, and this lady probably would have needed at least 1 root canal, maybe even 2.  Not only would that have required more time, possible a lot of discomfort, but probably would have added another $1500-2000 in treatment costs.

Do you really want to wait?

Another Porcelain Veneer Smile Makeover

Porcelain veneers are one of the most requested cosmetic dental procedures in dentistry, and they can make a dramatic difference.  Here’s another case that we did a number of years ago.  Craig wasn’t happy with either the color or the shape of his teeth, he’d tried whitening before with little success (this was back before we offered Deep Bleaching), and he also just didn’t have the patience to do touch-up whitening on any kind of regular basis.  So veneers became the logical choice.   In 1 fell swoop we gave him a dazzling white smile and changed the shape of his teeth to a less angled, less square, more flowing line of a smile from the sharply angled, very square with fang-like eye-teeth smile that he never liked.

Before photo of Craig, who chose 8 Porcelain Veneers by cosmetic dentist Dr. Charles Payet in Charlotte, NC.

After photo of Craig, who chose 8 Porcelain Veneers by cosmetic dentist Dr. Charles Payet in Charlotte, NC

For more examples of what cosmetic dentistry can do, don’t forget to visit our website: Smiles by Payet Dentistry