|
A Work in Progress. . . .
I've been watching beautiful smiles coming out of Dr. Coker's Smile Studio for a few years and thinking that I would like to do that 'someday.' I can't remember an exact thought or event that propelled me towards it, but last summer I decided to schedule for an exam and consult.
I remember during the 'talking' part of the exam, Cindy had me look at pictures and books of beautiful smiles to see what I wanted my smile to look like. It was hard to tell what 'that' beautiful smile in 'that' beautiful face would look like in 'my' mouth with 'my' face. I think I finally settled on a couple of pictures which seemed to really relieve Cindy. She probably didn't want the whole decision to rest on her shoulders.
After Dr. Coker and Cindy studied my x-rays and photographs, they came up with a suggested treatment plan. When I went back in to talk about it, they suggested that since I was going to go through all the effort involved in getting a new smile, I might want to add a procedure which would make my results even more perfect. That procedure was a 'crown lengthening' which would be performed by the periodontist, Dr. John Adcock. Wow, that scared me a little and I had to think about it for about a month.
Finally, I decided to go talk to Dr. Adcock. After examining me and looking at my photos, he agreed with Dr. Coker that it would definitely improve my 'smile' results. I still wasn't exactly sure what it was going to do, but went ahead and set up my surgery appointment. I was pretty nervous going in that morning, but was soon made to feel at ease. I was lightly sedated and my gums were anesthetized so I don't really remember being there for very long.
I think the surgery actually took about 2 hours and from what I now understand, Dr. Adcock make incisions around a number of my upper teeth and gently reflected the gum tissue. Then he removed a small amount of bone around each of the involved teeth. When that was finished, he sutured my gums back into their new position. This made my teeth 'longer.'
My husband drove me home and I slept for a couple of hours. After that, I honestly didn't have any pain even though I was sent home with a pain pill prescription. I was not supposed to eat any hard foods or even brush my teeth for a few days while the gum tissue was trying to heal. (I did get to rinse my mouth with a type of perio solution). Dr. Adcock saw me a couple of more times and I was released to get my 'smile makeover' done about 6 weeks after the surgery.
Today was my first 'smile work' appointment with Dr. Coker. I was again nervous, but once again I got gentle, excellent care. I went in at 7:00 this morning and Kim checked my health history with me and took my blood pressure and checked to see how much oxygen I had in my blood. She gave me a hot wax treatment for my hands and as I was relaxing in the dental chair with my hands in warm mitts, Dr. Coker started my sedation and nitrous oxide.
By the time he anesthetized me and started work, I was totally relaxed. I could even drown out the sound of the drill by turning up the classical music on my headphones. It was great! Since I have trouble keeping my mouth open for extended periods of time, they used something called a bite block so I could rest my jaws.
Dr. Coker prepared ten teeth today and I was sitting up and looking at my new temporaries by noon. Then, I was handed a wonderful banana-strawberry 'smoothie' which was fun to try to drink with a numb mouth. :-)
I was driven home where I took an Advil and I got to work on my 'blog' entry. My mouth is finally awake, but my gums are still a little sore. All in all another 'easy' day in a dental chair!
Monica Criswell, February 7, 2006
th
posed
above the gums. Dentists often need mor
gumline in order
to prepare the tooth for a crown (or cap as some call it).
|
