This story goes back a long time. A new patient (J.J.) came in carrying his upper front tooth, root and all. It had come out when he’d used his front teeth to tear open a chip bag and he wanted me to put it back in place. When I told him that it wouldn’t remain in place because the jaw bone around it was missing, a result of periodontal disease. He asked whether a tiny screw would work. He was serious, so I shook off my giggles. We wound up removing the other loose teeth from his smile and building a partial denture to replace four of his upper front teeth. This was held in place by two metal clasps that were visible on surrounding teeth, near the gumline. He appreciated having a smile but didn’t like to laugh because his metal clasps showed.
Fast forward 12 years, and this patient came in with a partial denture, broken. The advent of implants, with screw attachments, was now in the marketplace so I asked J.J. whether he was ready to transition to something without metal clasps that screwed into his jaw, sort of. His response was, “Sign me up, so I can laugh again!”
J.J. has sent several of his friends to Winterset Dental. In my opinion, each one looks years younger than they did on their first Winterset Dental exam.
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