My Health History Affected My Oral Health, Dental Implants Restored My Smile!
Hi. I’m Leanna, I had an upper and lower all-on-6 by Dr. Klaus. I had been having decay for several years and we couldn’t figure out why. And the previous dentist was just basically treating it with fillings because they really thought it was cavities. Then he retired, and a new person came in and it just was a complete 180 with that. They were basically blaming me. They were giving me lectures on how to brush my teeth telling me that I needed to not eat sugar, not drink sweet tea, not do this, not do that.
I take more pictures on social media, I smile more. I interact with more and just feel more like how I was before all this happened.
Leanna:
I was tired of getting constant fillings with no answers. So, I actually had a family friend recommend Dr, Klaus, and the first interaction in here was great, they were nice and courteous and understanding that I was here to basically find answers and from the get-go, they were very nice and gentle and they just took me through all the steps of basically getting a complete work up because we had nothing to go on. I guess you could say when we first came here.
Leanna:
Basically, it was just from the start, it had to be a complete redo of most of my dental medical history. And from the get-go, he was like, this is what we need to try. And then, once we figured out what it was and that it wasn’t the sugar and the hygiene. He said it wasn’t you, it’s your autoimmune. We’re going to figure it out. We’re going to figure out the best treatment and that’s what we did.
Klaus:
Leanna has a complex health history. She’s prediabetic, she has early stages of rheumatoid and some autoimmune disorders as well as Sjögren’s syndrome. And Sjögren’s syndrome can be absolutely detrimental to a patient’s dentition. When the saliva does not act properly, no matter what we do, the teeth can break down. Unfortunately, with her, we weren’t able to get that aspect of her health under control. We had to decide whether to go on and try to crown every tooth. She made it a point that she did not want to continue to deal with root canals, she did not want to continue having to fight that decay battle.
Leanna:
Mainly because of my age, I chose to do the upper and lower because I didn’t want to do crowns and in twenty-thirty years have to replace the crowns, this was more long-term. Even though I knew he was experienced and I knew that his staff is experienced, he still encouraged me to look into it and I decided that that’s what I wanted to do. It was just slowly stepping up to the actual procedures.
Klaus:
I tell my patients all the time that I’ve got to treat them as a person as a whole, before we treat their mouth. Leanna’s was a great case to exhibit that and that we made sure that everything was right systemically before we proceed with the implant surgery. Every implant case we do is specific to that patient, it’s not just the custom teeth, it’s also a custom surgical plan. I could look at her and I did. I looked at her, I said “Leanna, you will never wear a denture.” We are able to do that by saving certain teeth that support interim prosthesis. And then after the implants integrated, we swapped her provisional from being supported by natural teeth to being supported by implants and in doing so it increased our confidence and it increased our ability to restore her and it was truly a natural and well sequenced process.
Leanna:
After we got the upper and I was actually home and awake and started realizing what? I guess that I did have the temporaries in, it was just amazing to me because he took senior portraits of mine and that’s what they modeled after. So, they really seriously look like my teeth. And even my friends have brought it up. I take more pictures on social media, I smile more. I interact with more and just feel more like how I was before all this happened.
Klaus:
I always knew that Leanna was an outgoing person as her mother’s a patient of mine as well. And I don’t want to take any credit for restoring that to her, but I do know that what we’ve been able to do with her treatment will allow her the opportunity to continue being that outgoing individual.
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