Final Crowns Equally Important as Implant Surgery

Q: My husband and I loved your last seminar. You spoke a lot about the digital impressions that are replacing the clay-like “yucky” molds. How is this related to implant work?

A: Thank you for the positive feed back! In my business, most people try to keep as far away as possible and when they do show up, they often spit on the floor, missing the little sink entirely! (Wait. I might be thinking of the men’s room at Yankee Stadium.)

Many of today’s modern dental offices, including my own as you mentioned, have tossed out the goopy molds and replaced them with a digital scanner called iTero that takes 3D images of the teeth which are emailed to a special lab that creates robot-milled virtual models. I do all my veneers, inlays, crowns and bridges this way and now…Implants.

After an implant is placed in the bone, a special metal cap called an Encode is attached to the top, protruding above the gum line. We than wave the scanning wand over the Encode and through wi-fi send the 3D image to the special lab for fabrication of the abutment (connecting post) and the final crown or bridge which will be cemented or screwed down to the implant below. No goop, no fuss, no mess!