full mouth reconstruction

Full Mouth Reconstruction: A Life-Changing and Cosmetic Decision

Full mouth reconstruction is more than just a dental procedure — it's a life decision. It can completely transform your smile, improve your confidence, and restore your ability to chew and speak properly. Because of its importance, you might want to understand the process in more detail. That’s why we’d like to show you exactly how we approach full mouth reconstruction at our office.

Smile Design Planning: Photos, Videos, and Wax-Up Before Treatment

When it comes to creating your ideal smile, treatment doesn’t begin with drilling, shaping, or bonding — it begins with careful planning. At our dental office, we believe that a beautiful smile should not only look natural but also function properly and last for years. That’s why the first step in your smile makeover journey involves detailed records, wax-up design, and a customized plan.

Step 1: Photos, Impressions, and Videos

Before considering cosmetic or restorative treatment, we collect as much information as possible about your teeth, gums, and facial features. This includes:

• Photographs – multiple angles of your teeth and smile.

• Impressions or scans – to capture the exact shape of your teeth.

• Videos – to evaluate your natural smile, lip strength, and how much tooth shows when your face is at rest.

These videos also help us analyze whether your smile shows characteristics like a gummy smile, or if your facial profile is more flat or convex. This level of detail ensures we understand not only how your teeth look, but also how they move and function in real life.

Step 2: Wax-Up and Smile Design

Once we’ve gathered your records, we move into the wax-up and smile design phase. This is where your new smile begins to take shape — before any treatment is done. Depending on your case, this can be done digitally (digital wax-up) or by hand (hand wax-up). We always choose the method that gives the most accurate and beneficial outcome for each patient.

During this phase, we consider both aesthetics and function:

• Aesthetics – Do you prefer teeth that are more oval, square, longer, or shorter?

• Function – Is one side of your bite heavier or more worn down? Is your bite plane tilted? Are these issues caused by skeletal structure (with certain limitations) or by the teeth themselves (which can often be corrected)?

This planning process ensures your final results are not only beautiful and natural-looking, but also balanced, healthy, and long-lasting.

3D Digital Smile Design showing before (top) and after (bottom) for a patient with small teeth and gaps. This preview helps visualize how veneers or cosmetic treatment can improve the smile

3D-printed models of the digital smile design, showing before and after. These prints help patients visualize the results in person and are also used to create putty guides for temporary teeth.

Putty mold made from a digital/hand wax-up model. This guide is not only used to show patients the proposed smile design but can also be placed in the mouth for a preview and to help create temporary teeth.

pre-made putty will be appplied in to the tooth with try in/ temporary material, then those material left in teet and putty will be removed.

pre-made putty will be appplied in to the tooth with try in/ temporary material, then those material left in teet and putty will be removed.

Step 3: Trial Fit (Smile Test-Drive)

Once the digital or hand wax-up is complete, we create a model of it using either putty or a clear-aligner–style material. This model is then placed in your mouth with a safe trial material—before any treatment or drilling begins.

This step is often called the “smile test-drive.” Instead of trying to imagine the result from a model, you actually get to see and feel your new smile in place. Many patients find this moment exciting because it makes the final outcome much more real and easy to visualize.

The trial fit isn’t just for you—it also helps me as your dentist. By previewing the design directly in your mouth, I can carefully plan the treatment and make sure only the minimal, necessary adjustments are made. Because everything is designed in advance, your teeth are never shaped randomly—we only refine exactly what’s needed to achieve the best result.

The top picture shows the patient’s current condition. The bottom picture shows the “smile test-drive” after we placed the putty model over the teeth—no drilling yet, just a preview of the future smile.

Step 4: Temporary Crowns

If you choose to move forward with treatment, the same design we used for your smile test-drive will now guide the creation of your temporary crowns. After your teeth are carefully prepared, these temporaries are made to look almost identical to the design you already approved. In fact, many patients feel they look even better—since at this stage, cavities or discolored teeth have already been treated.

A common question is: “Why can’t temporary crowns be made ahead of time?” The reason is that the exact amount of tooth adjustment can’t be predicted perfectly in advance, especially if old crowns or restorations are present. But because your smile has already been digitally or manually designed, you can think of it as though the “shell” of your temporary teeth was prepared in advance.

This step is where you start living with your new smile every day. You’ll be able to talk, eat, and smile with confidence while we finalize your permanent restorations. For patients looking for cosmetic dentistry or temporary crowns, this phase is both exciting and reassuring—you’re already seeing a beautiful preview of the final result.