Dec 2, 20212 min read

The Process of a Smile Makeover

Updated: Jun 30, 2022

In this blog, we will show you how a smile makeover is planned, digitalised and tested on the patient before he/she gets the final restorations. The advantage of this planning is that the end results are predicted, which leaves minimum room for unexpected errors. Therefore, the patient participates in the process of his/her smile design and has the possibility to ask for changes before finalising his/her case.

DOCUMENTATION

A series of photos are taken from the patient. Together with the intra-oral dental scans, we can advance to the planning phase.

PLANNING

These are the dental impressions of the patient's teeth. Nowadays, they are taken with an intra-oral scanner that will create STL files.

Smile Analysis

All of the pictures + scans of the patient is uploaded to the computer. With the help of all this information collected, we are able to tailor a smile that is specific to all the facial characteristics of the patient.

Smile Design

On the picture below, we can see the future ceramics size and shape which are chosen depending on all the information that we collected above. Now, we are ready to show the patient how this new smile will fit him on the computer.

Design Evaluation

In the stage below, the patient and the dentist will evaluate the integration of the new smile together. The patient can always suggest his changes and it can be rectified directly. Once this step is accepted, we are ready to move to the mock up phase where the patient can see a preview of his end result with the help of a temporary material.

Smile Trial

The patient can evaluate his designed smile live. The advantages of this phase is that the patient can have an idea of the end result. Moreover, the patient can always suggest what he wants to change. The dentist will perform the changes, take new pictures/scans, and send the new information to the dental laboratory. Thanks to this step, we can obtain more predictable results since we made the changes before receiving the permanent veneers/crowns.

Here is the video how the smile test process goes :

On the image below, you can see the acrylic material that we use for the smile test drive and also for temporaries:

PREPARATION

Thanks to the guided prep mock-up, we are able to define how much from the tooth we need to prepare. This is a big advantage since most of our tooth structure is conserved.

IMPRESSION

An intraoral scanner is a device that is used to capture a direct optical impression. The scanner projects a light source onto the area to be scanned. The images are captured by imaging sensors and are processed by scanning software, which then produces a 3D surface model.