I am having some problems with the procedure my dentist is doing. My teeth are down to tiny nubs. I’ve also had lots of pain in my jaw because of some trauma and it pops whenever I open it. My dentist said he’d need to open up my bite, which would require placing dental crowns on every tooth. At first, it went well. The temporaries fit fine and everything looks good. But, now that both the upper and lowers are placed, I am in tremendous pain. The right uppers don’t meet, but the left uppers meet too quickly and hurt like crazy. They’re permanently bonded on. Is there a way for him to shave down the ones that are hitting too soon?
Carrie
Dear Carrie,
What your dentist is trying to do is called a full-mouth reconstruction. This is a very advanced procedure and takes a significant amount of training AFTER dental school to understand all the mechanics behind it. Three very good post-doctoral training centers for this are:
- The Pankey Institute
- The Dawson Academy
- The Las Vegas Institute for Advanced Dental Studies
However, even with advanced training, this type of procedure has to be done carefully and methodically. It’s important to work from provisionals only until the case is successful at that point. By successful, I mean every occludes properly, your bite is so comfortable you don’t notice it, and you speak without any issues. Only when all that is accomplished are the permanent crowns even to be made.
From there, your dentist would seat the dental crowns, along with any bridgework, temporarily making sure they are completely comfortable and any bite adjustments necessary are made. Only after that would he permanently bond them on. It doesn’t sound like your dentist did this.
In cases such as yours, where there are already have symptoms of underlying TMJ Disorder issues, such as popping in your jaw, it’s even more important. You don’t want the procedure to throw off your bite even further, thereby exacerbating your TMJ problems.
While technically he could do some grinding on the crowns to get them to meet your teeth at the same time as the opposite side, based on what you said there would be too much grinding necessary for this to be a realistic functioning solution. At this point, my recommendation is you get a second opinion from a dentist who attended one of the schools I mentioned above. They can give you some guidance from there.
This blog is brought to you by Grosse Pointe Woods Dentist Dr. Theodore Hadgis.