This weekend I had someone call me with a dental emergency. This individual had never been in our office before, but her case demonstrates several things that I think we really do well at Canyon Gate Dental, so I wanted to share how it went.
The patient was visiting Utah Valley from the Logan area and had come for a weekend shopping trip to spend time with her sisters. While shopping she felt a front tooth break and become completely loose. She seemed calm on the phone, but her sisters tell me there was a little more panic in her demeanor right after the incident happened. I was able to see her immediately on Friday night and found that she had indeed fractured her front tooth completely. She was not in pain, but this was simply because her tooth nerve was completely dead; in fact, a small abscess was starting to form on the root of the tooth. The diagnosis was very clear: her tooth needed a root canal and a crown to restore her smile.
On Friday night we made a provisional fix to get her through dinner and the evening, and then opened the office on Saturday morning to do permanent treatment. Our wonderful assistant Skyler spent her Saturday morning with us—and she volunteered to do so!—in order to take care of someone in need.
The treatment went very well on Saturday, with the root canal and crown preparation going exactly as planned. After that was complete, we made a beautiful porcelain crown for her using our CEREC milling machine, and she walked out the same day smiling—no temporary crown needed. See the before and after pictures below. (Disclaimer: I didn’t intend to publish these originally, so the photographs were just taken with my iPhone rather than a higher quality camera).
Several things stood out to me about this case:
- Dental technology has changed for the better. Even after seeing and treating hundreds of crown cases, I am still blown away by how powerful CEREC technology is. This machine makes some beautiful crowns that are extremely strong. Getting a crown has never been more comfortable.
- We have a wonderful staff in our office. They really know their stuff, and more importantly, they are some of the most compassionate people I know. They sincerely enjoy helping people.
- We try to do our best with dental emergencies. There are times when we aren’t available, but we do try our best to be available for our patients, even during evenings and weekends.
- Dentistry is fun! Seeing these smile “makeovers” is one of the aspects of my job I enjoy the most.
-Nicolas K. Young
