Denise came into my practice multiple times wanting a smile makeover. Below is an image from the first day the patient came in wanting a new smile. Unfortunately, it took months for her to start treatment due to her initial anxiety. The final straw was when the upper left lateral incisor fractured off, which can be seen in the before picture in this section.
Some factors limited space to fit implant dentures in Denise's mouth. The patient already had a few implants on her upper and lower teeth that locked us into the current bone height. Speaking of lower teeth, the patient knew she needed to
extract all her upper teeth but wanted to keep her lower natural teeth at all costs.
People may not realize that space is an issue for implant dentures. When there is a lack of space between the upper and lower jaws, your implant denture options are limited. First, you can make thin dentures and have them look nice, but they will be at risk of breaking. Second, you can make them thick and strong, but they may look and feel funny or even cause
jaw issues. Usually, to create space, we usually remove bone from the upper and lower jawbone before inserting the implants into them. Unfortunately, Denise already had implants that prevented us from removing bone, and we weren't removing her lower teeth.
When patients have limited space, we can use zirconia to make the denture. Zirconia can be made thin and still resist fractures due to its strength. It is an excellent cosmetic smile when other cosmetic materials cannot be used. Unfortunately, it is more expensive, so we usually use other cosmetic materials when possible. You can see the results in the image in this section.
