A cost effective treatment to restoring occlusion on a severe Bruxer

Wanting to improve the esthetics of her smile, this patient presented with generalized wear on all her teeth, a severely deep overbite with +100% vertical overlap in the anterior.  She also developed a diastema between her front teeth due to a heavy bite and fractured a bridge on #9-11 beyond repair. The occlusal plane was relatively in a good position, making treatment more predictable. The patients main concern was achieving a plan for a cost effective, durable, esthetic treatment.

 

Our goals were to :

-Correct her bite. Restore the missing tooth structures and re-establish correct facial proportions.

-Replace missing teeth #9-11.

-Improve the esthetics of her smile.

-Protect her occlusion to prevent future wear.

-Improve her chewing function.

-Improve her esthetics.

-Provide a cost effective solution within her budget.

With a deep vertical overbite, heavy occlusion and bruxing habits, these unfavorable factors made treatment a challenge.  We wanted to deliver a predictable result yet, she did not want to go through lengthy orthodontic intrusion and surgical implant placement was out of her budget.  Given her lower teeth had a relatively stable occlusion, we decided to restore all her upper teeth for now, and reestablish the loss of facial height.  A splint was used to evaluate a comfortable yet sufficient amount of opening.  Later, she has the option of restoring her lower teeth.

We decided to use zirconia on the posterior molars with facial porcelain, monolithic E-max on premolars , and layered E-max in the anterior. We choose not to replace the bridge with a longer span nor place implants, because we felt that her occlusion would put excessive pressure.  Instead we decided to replace the missing teeth with a removable partial denture, and build-in a stable occlusion onto the metal framework while opening her bite. This is a durable, cost effective solution to restoring  a patient’s bite as well as protecting her new restorations.  Having control of the restoration contours allowed us to design a rotational path partial with improved esthetics and no visible clasps.