Final porcelain crowns for teeth # 6-11

Today I observed a case where final porcelain crowns for teeth # 6-11 on a 53 year old female. First the patient was shown the crowns out of mouth, and she found them to be esthetically pleasing. The patient was given nitrous for several minutes and local anesthesia in the maxillary anterior region.

The temporaries were carefully removed, first by separating each temporary into individual units, and then sectioning each individual unit to allow the most comfortable way to remove the temporary. The final porcelain crowns were tried in, and the patient was given a mirror.

Initially the patient was satisfied with the appearance of the teeth when shown outside the mouth, however she wanted to make changes once the teeth were placed in her mouth. I learned that it is important to allow the patient to make the final decision on accepting the final product, and to be careful not to make up their mind for them. The patient made several requests to a lab technician that was available in office, including but not limited to a darker shade, shortening of the incisal edges, and squaring off the rounded incisal edges. The crowns were sent back to the lab for refinement and returned in one hour for final insertion.

N.D., New York University College of Dentistry

Categorised in: Dental Student Experiences

This post was written by Interns