Treating Holiday Emergencies with CEREC
As the end of the year comes, we get all kinds of emergencies. I always find that the broken front tooth or front crown seems so much more prevalent than other times of the year.
Here is a case that is a few years old, where the patient was going out of town for the holidays and broke an existing veneer. He had the broken veneer and brought it in with him.
I was able to bond it lightly back onto the tooth and then take some images of it with my CERECÂ machine that I used to copy exactly what was in his mouth. I then prepped the tooth a bit to clean it up, and took a new image to make a new veneer. I used a Vita block to match his existing porcelain and with just a bit of glaze I was able to get a great match and send him on his way.
This is the kind of service that is not possible without having the ability to mill in your office.
I took a three-year post-op image of the tooth. The patient could not be happier with the result. He was so amazed by the technology and service provided by our office. A nice way to wish a patient happy holiday!
to further emphasize the benefits of Cerec: I had an elderly patient today leaving on vacation tomorrow. She had fractured an abutment anchoring a fixed bridge. Her 3 unit bridge was now turning into a 4 unit bridge. After doing the prep work, we captured our images (in a less than desireable working environment) and designed our restoration . In 36 minutes we milled her the most beautiful 4 unit temporary I have ever seen, cemented it and sent her on her way. Would have taken much longer any other way and never would have achieved the same results.
alan, I had a case yesterday walk in after I submitted this case for the blog. It is a very elderly pt that I did a cerec on a pretty hopeless tooth about 16 months ago. It was a fractured #7 and there was very little tooth structure left on it. Her daughter didn't want it extracted, so I did somewhat of a build up on it and prepped it but the remaining tooth structure is still tiny. She said she bit into something and it broke. I'm thinking debond because the prep was pristine. I just pulled up the old file and milled it in about 8 minutes and polished it up and cemented it. They were just blown away that I was able to do this. so convenient!!
Rich, I hope the patient has referred a ton of patients to your office. Nice work and terrific service for him. Cerec dentistry rocks.
thanks Kent and Sam. Just wanted to show something that's been in the mouth a few years. These are the kinds of emergencies that come in all the time in all of our offices and we should embrace our technology. I know that many are fearful of doing anteriors and they should not be.
