Dr. Snyder in Braces

After 5 months in his Suresmile wires and springs to create space Dr. Snyder was ready for his build-ups. Dr. Mark Nelson from Rosemount, MN had Dr. Snyder come in with his top wire out. The build-ups were able to be done with the braces still on. Dr. Nelson just worked around the braces and used bonding material to make Dr. Snyders teeth the appropriate size. To the left is a photo taken of Dr. Snyder before his braces went on and to the right is a photo with his braces on and the build-ups placed. Dr. Snyders future perfect smile is really starting to come along nicely.

These are the doctors teeth just after the braces were placed and he was scanned for 3-D imaging…Now he will begin planning on the new positions of his teeth by utilizing the 3-D software created by Suresmile to virtually move his teeth….note all the tools at his disposal to optimize his final tooth positions…









With a simple click he can remove his braces from the virtual image…









With another click of his mouse he can measure the widths of all of the teeth and determine the ratio of tooth widths that will best fit with the lower teeth

With the zoom feature he can look close to the areas in need of decision making

once close to a final decision on the best fit he can compare his pretreatment braces positions (left) with his post treatment targeted positions (right)

Once he decides on a final set up of his teeth he has a virtual wire made to the final tooth positions (right screen). All this information is sent to the main office in Texas where the Robot will bend and manipulate the Dr.'s wires. This wire is a special wire made from material that is soft, it changes its properties upon cooling and warming of the wire, and it has shape memory…the wire is virtually superimposed on the original teeth on the left…Dr. Snyder can superimpose the wire to his orig inal teeth (left screen) note the displacements required to move his teeth to their final positions…

close up view of the displacements required to move his teeth in the very “crooked” area of his mouth

Dr. Snyder can virtually look at the wire from any direction…once he is happy with the set up and the wire he orders the robot to construct the wire to these precise dimensions…the wire is placed and away we go

Dr. Snyder can virtually look at the wire from any direction…once he is happy with the set up and the wire he orders the robot to construct the wire to these precise dimensions…the wire is placed and away we go

Here is the robotically bent wire inserted on 3/9/06…note the springs present to begin ideal alignment of the upper anteriors for eventual build ups..

The accurate 3-D images of Dr. Snyder's teeth are digitally scanned photos made possible by Suresmile.



These are Dr. Snyder’s teeth before treatment. Note that the midlines are off and his upper front teeth are small with spaces.













His models are made and his braces are ready to be put on. Note that when we made plaster models to evaluate his bite there is more to the problem than meets the eye…his lower jaw can assume more than one position where the side teeth do not fit very well in this position….this multiple jaw position permitted the drift of the midlines, the shift of the midline, and contributed to the spacing in the upper.

Note that the lower front teeth are also quite worn due to this bite issue.









Again there is more present than meets the eye…note how small the lateral incisor truly is and the rotation of the premolar due to the bite permitting tooth drift over time.






The wear on the lower teeth is likely due to his strong eastern European facial type…strong chin/strong lower jaw. With strong lower jaw and a bite jaw permitted to assume multiple positions he doesn’t have a true home for his bite, especially if he grinds or clenches teeth at night. With strong jaws and bite without a true home the tiny lower teeth can get hammered over time and even wear down to little nubs.


The SureSmile software permits this view which superimposed the exact 3-D replica of his teeth over the side X-Ray. This shows the other important problem as to why he is straightening his teeth….his strong lower jaw is due to genetics and in his case this facial type also has strong lip muscles…these lip muscles are a tight band in front of his upper front teeth. The muscles have uprighted or pulled back the upper front teeth putting them in harms way for the wear seen on the previous images.