Last Monday Karin and I went into Vancouver for my second visit to the dental laboratory. The lab is making the crowns that will be mounted on the dental implants that were placed in my mouth last fall. My first trip to the lab had been for the colour matching, and this appointment was officially a “stain appointment”.
When I arrived, the technician had all six teeth sitting in front of her. Each looked like a pulled tooth without a root and was hollow inside. She used tweezers to hold each one up to my mouth to check the final colour, and had a palette of liquid paints in front of her to touch up the tooth. I had mentioned that they were surprised how white my teeth were last time, thanks to my diligent bleaching and avoidance of staining foods; and this time there were even more surprised that my teeth were now whiter. As a result, the technician had to use an even whiter shade as the final touch up. After painting each one, she put them in little oven to dry the paint; though I have no idea if it was heat, infrared, ultraviolet, or yet another option that dried the paint. I suspect it was just heat from the look of the device.
Just as the previous appointment had been rescheduled to give the lab more time, so had this appointment. I had been told on the phone that it was because of the need to make custom abutments; apparently the original delay had been while they waited for a part to make two custom abutments, but when they had called me last week to re-schedule they had already ended up making four custom abutments and needed an extra few days to make a fifth. I was naturally curious and asked exactly what was an dental abutment. The technicians were quite happy to have someone express an interest in their work, and the woman who was doing the colour matching was joined for the explanation by the technician next to her, who had done a lot of the work on my teeth.
I was shown the mold of my upper arch that had the gums removed and replaced with a pink waxy material. Since my last visit, hollow titaniuml tubes had been added in each tooth’s spot. It was explained to me that these were the abutments, which will be attached to the implants and then have the crown slide over top. Each abutment is shaved to narrow it at the end, almost making a sharp circle at the end. Of the six abutments, they had only been able to use one that was pre-machined, as my bite has my bottom teeth sliding behind my front teeth. Pre-machined abutments that stick straight out would hit my bottom teeth before the crowns were even placed over top, and they therefore had to make abutments that will allow my bottom teeth to slide behind them and the crowns over top without touching. This will be something new for me, as my bottom teeth have always hit my flipper, and my original childhood dentist had gone as far as to shave the top off of one lower canine. I will now have nothing hit when I close my mouth. They assured me when I asked that the custom abutments did not mean that they will be weaker in any way.
Both technicians were surprised when they looked in my mouth at the amount of gum growth as compared to the molds, and so I explained that it appears that I heal too good. Apparently a couple of abutments were very difficult to spot. They also warned me that with this many implants at once and the changes in my mouth both due to time and the pressure of the flipper while I was healing, there is a chance that all the crowns and/or abutments might not fit and I might have to come back again for them to redo some of them.
This afternoon I have an appointment at the 7Oaks Laser Dental Centre here in Abbotsford for Dr. Ajar to attach the crowns. It will be the first time since I was about 10 years old that I will be able to have a full toothed smile without a dental flipper. I guess I’d better go shave so that I can take some before and after pictures.
