When it comes to many of the ways that your smile can be upgraded, we use an advanced scanning technology that helps us create perfect solutions for your unique oral health and cosmetic dental needs: iTero.
Few dental practices have this, which enables us to use a small wand that is moved gently around the inside of your mouth, taking 6,000 digital pictures a second to produce 3-D images, free of any radiation. These highly accurate photos even of hard-to-see parts of the mouth allow us to produce a treatment plan that you and we have confidence in to get you on the way to your smile goals.
The iTero also allows us to skip making physical impression molds, a messy and uncomfortable process that most other practices must do in order to give the dental lab an idea of what needs to be done. These traditional impressions are never as accurate as a digital version, so more adjustments have to be made before the final version of the oral appliance is installed.
There are many possible applications for iTero’s imaging:
Invisalign Orthodontic Aligners
You have probably heard that to straighten teeth now, instead of the long and uncomfortable process of wearing traditional braces, many patients can utilize aligner trays that they can remove before they eat. The iTero allows you to see what your smile will look like when treatment is finished and enables us to track your progress and adjust the aligners as needed to keep progress on course.
Dental Implants
Replacing a missing tooth, whether due to an accident or poor dental hygiene, with a dental implant is a complicated process to make sure it is anchored into the jawbone and is a good fit for the gap, topped by a crown that matches the neighboring teeth. With proper care, this can be a permanent solution.
Dental Crowns
These look like the visible part of your natural teeth and can restore your bite alignment after teeth are missing, ground down while you sleep, or chipped and need the protection of this cap.
Bridges
A less expensive and quicker alternative to an implant and crown is a dental bridge. This requires an impression to be sent to the dental lab to craft what looks like a natural tooth, which will then be attached to the back of the teeth next to where the missing one was, so no one will know you ever had a gap. It is not anchored into the jaw, however, and may not last as long, but it will keep the teeth from further misalignment (a natural process, as the remaining teeth lean towards any gap and become themselves loose, ultimately resulting in more of them falling out).
Veneers
Made of strong dental porcelain attached to the front of teeth, these can cover cracks, chips, deep discoloration, and gaps, as well as misshapen teeth or ones that are too small or too large. They are increasingly popular with celebrities and the general public for an easy way to correct cosmetic and functional smile flaws.
Call today for a dental appointment in Los Angeles and Larchmont Village to have a full dental exam and find out what your best options are to achieve your ideal smile.
More Info and Resources on Cosmetic Dentistry: