When disease, decay, or damage wreck a smile, a patient may feel embarrassed about seeking professional help. Dr Donnelly welcomes patients with broken-down smiles. We applaud you for taking a step toward reclaiming a strong and healthy smile for a healthier life! You’ll feel better emotionally and physically when you have a comfortable, beautiful smile to share with the world.
Sometimes a few crowns, fillings, or replacement teeth aren’t enough to completely restore dental health. When you visit, Dr. Donnelly will evaluate your teeth, gums, and soft tissues, as well as your occlusion (how your teeth fit together ). We will take X-rays, intra- and extra-oral images, and study models to provide us with detailed information to create your full-mouth reconstruction plan.
More and more we are seeing people with severely decayed teeth ( due to use of more sweets, sports drinks, sodas and methamphetamine use), or people who have worn their teeth down by grinding (bruxing). These result in a dentition where the teeth are much shorter than they were originally. This causes the jaws to “collapse”, or come closer together than they should giving people the “old person without a chin” look, and functional issues. In these cases we need to restore the teeth back to their normal size by treating all of the teeth at once. This takes special planning and care in restoration; but the results are impressive. Giving these patients back their smile and function is one of our most rewarding efforts.