Reclaiming a functional, healthy, and beautiful smile is possible.

Your teeth are your silent companions, hanging out and waiting to be of use to you as you go through your day. But did you know your teeth also take an active role in your overall health? For some, their teeth and smile can also impact their social lives and self-esteem, affecting the way they present themselves in public.

Our teeth are shielded by the strongest element in the body—enamel. However, teeth aren’t completely indestructible. Wear and tear, decay, or injury can result in chips, yellowing, or cracks.

Restorative dentistry has a wide range of treatments to restore the function, appearance, and health of your smile. If you’ve started looking into these treatments, you may have run into the term “full mouth reconstruction,” but it might not be immediately clear what it is and how or if it differs from other restorative dentistry treatments. To help you determine if this may be the solution for you, we’ve put together a guide on the ins and outs of full mouth reconstruction.

 What’s a full mouth reconstruction?

A full mouth reconstruction is a process that uses multiple restorative dentistry techniques to revitalize the function, health, and appearance of all of your teeth. It’s tailored to your individual needs, so each full mouth reconstruction looks a little different. While performing restorative dentistry procedures on your teeth over time to treat individual issues will restore your smile to some degree, a full mouth reconstruction has the advantage of considering your smile as a whole. Individual treatments are just that—individual. They only treat the single issue, often on just one or two teeth, that’s in front of them at the moment.

With a full mouth reconstruction, Dr. Tomasik and Dr. Clor are free to treat your whole mouth at once. They consider every single one of your oral health issues as well as your goals for your teeth and your smile as they plan your treatment. They help you decide which procedures are best for you and plan what order you’ll need to receive them in, creating a predicted treatment timeline and giving you a solid idea of what your completed smile will look like. Put simply, it’s a bigger-picture approach with an eye on helping you gain an entire smile that is functional, healthy, and beautiful in the long-term.

What procedures can a full mouth reconstruction include?

A wide variety of procedures can be used to restore your smile. While you won’t need all of these procedures, here are a few options that may work for you:

• Root canal therapy
• Dental crowns
• Dental bridges
• Tooth extractions
• Dental implants
• Bone grafts
• Gum contouring
• Orthodontic treatment
• Porcelain veneers
• Inlays
• Onlays

What kinds of issues do full mouth reconstructions treat?

Since full mouth reconstructions contain such a large variety of potential procedures, they can also treat a wide range of dental issues. These include problems like restoring teeth that are missing, severely worn, broken or cracked, crooked, or are suffering from enamel erosion. They can also be used to treat enamel erosion, receded gums, tooth sensitivity, and TMJ pain. Since the procedures used to treat these oral health issues are customized for you and designed to go beyond the surface, you’ll be able to gain a strong, healthy, and beautiful smile that you can truly be confident in.

Who is a good fit for a full mouth reconstruction?

Nearly anyone who needs restorative work on most of their teeth is a good candidate for a full mouth reconstruction. There are a few qualifications you do need to meet first, however, such as having healthy gums. If you have gum disease, we’ll recommend you undergo treatment to restore your gum health before you can undergo other treatments. Certain surgical procedures, like dental implants, are more involved and have lengthy healing processes, so health conditions that make you more likely to get a serious infection or that make it harder for you to heal may mean you need some time and treatment before a procedure is a good fit for you. If this is the case, we work collaboratively with your doctor before performing these types of procedures—he might need to walk you through a few procedures or treatments to better prepare you for full mouth reconstruction.

Even if you can’t receive dental implants, however, full mouth reconstructions can utilize so many different types of procedures that you can still revitalize it. As a result, most people are a great fit for a full mouth reconstruction.

How will the process of getting a full mouth reconstruction start?

Once you and your dentist decide a full mouth reconstruction is a good fit for you, we will take X-rays, scans, and sometimes CT images of your teeth and jaws to help determine what dental work needs to be done. He’ll also check up on the health of your gums, remaining teeth, and your temporomandibular joints. Then we will discuss your treatment goals with you and give you advice about which restorative procedures are best for you. Based on this information, we’ll create a treatment plan and provide you an estimate of how long it will take to complete.

 What dental technologies are used to accomplish a full mouth reconstruction?

Dr. Tomasik uses cutting-edge technology to give you the strongest, healthiest, and most attractive smile possible. Exactly what technology he uses will depend upon which treatments you’re receiving, but one of our commonly used pieces of technology includes the iTero Element 2, which is a scanner that creates digital, high-definition 3-D models of your teeth in just a few minutes. It’s much more comfortable for patients than using dental putty to get an impression—and more accurate! Additionally, our Cone Beam CT takes digital 3-D X-rays of your entire mouth to aid in the placement of implants while our Fotona dental laser helps us provide you with a more comfortable and faster healing process for soft-tissue surgeries like gum contouring. Laser treatment also means no scarring and better results.

How much will a full mouth reconstruction cost?

Since full mouth reconstructions vary so much based on what each individual patient needs, determining an average cost is incredibly tricky. The best way to determine what your full mouth reconstruction would really cost is to schedule a consultation. Once we walk you through what your reconstruction would involve, our office can provide you with an estimate for how much the treatment would cost and how much your dental insurance is likely to cover.

That said, it’s important to remember the value that a full mouth reconstruction provides. It will impact your daily life on countless levels for years to come by restoring the function of your teeth, making eating and speaking comfortable, simple tasks again. A healthy smile will make a positive impact on your overall health.

While it’s easy for a solution to start to feel out of reach when you’re suffering from multiple oral health issues, restorative dentistry has an answer for you in the form of a full mouth reconstruction, guided by a compassionate, experienced doctor. By looking at the big picture and treating your smile as a whole, you’ll gain long-lasting results in the form of a brand new smile—one that is just as healthy and functional as it is beautiful!