A Full Mouth Dental Implant Case. The patient is always right!

This week we completed a full mouth upper implant case using a cast bar and denture teeth. This was the case in the laboratory.

On the articulator

One particular issue we has was the size of the teeth; the patient had a fixation on the size of teeth and was concerned that oversized teeth would make the denture stand out and not look natural. However we went ahead and made the fixed implant bridge as requested following the try in of the teeth she asked for.

Dental Implant Bridge Palatal View

Dental Implant Bridge Labial View

Here's the finished result notice the size of the denture teeth!

It's interesting to note the difference between how the bridge looked on the articulator and then in the mouth. On the arictulator the small size of the teeth were not as apparent, but in the mouth, with the reference points of the nose and smile it is immediately clear to us as dental professionals that they are slightly too small.

But the patient is always right? And she loved them, but this could so easily have been a mistake rather than a success.

So, what lessons can we draw from this?

I think the biggest lesson is to use photographs both in the laboratory and in the surgery to communicate and share. On articulators we can easily make a mistake as we don't have the reference points of the nose and smile... but in the mouth, those small mistakes quickly come to light.

So get those photos shared.... how else can we avoid simple mistakes like getting the size of the teeth right?