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Mother’s Day Smile The winner of the Mother’s Day Smile Makeover is Terri Baker! Thank you for your support and voting! Here is an update on Terri from Dr. William Nerestant of Midtown Dental who is graciously giving Terri her new smile: “My personal experience with treating a patient is like going on a journey. It’s full of excitement for me and as well as the patient. There s a lot of planning involved although it varies from patient to patient. With some patients the journey is a short trip as in a patient just needing a cleaning as opposed to a patient who requires a full mouth reconstruction. Regardless of the length of the journey, It invariably starts with an exam or evaluation where we determine our destination after taking some data into account. The data collected may include the patient’s main concern, wish list, desires, present dental condition, past experience with dentistry, personal traits and medical history. Terri began her journey with us after a very competitive contest online as the emerging Winner of our Makeover Contest. There were over 60 entries in the contest. Terri stood out immediately. Her personal story and survival instinct are as poignant as they are inspirational. After Terri was chosen, the journey continued. It was time to collect more dentally relevant data and start developing a road map as to how we were going to best help Terri. After the initial evaluation, it was quickly determined that wherever our final destination was going to be, the bridge to cross called for the removal of all of Terry’s teeth. She had many missing teeth. The remaining ones were in bad shape, a consequence of gum disease, tooth decay and many years of not being able to go to the Dentist. Terri agreed that the teeth had to go. How would we then ensure that Terri’s condition improved after losing all her teeth? Among the concerns we had as it relates to Terri was how to avoid making a bad situation worse. How do we eliminate the infection and disease in her mouth once and for all? While removing her teeth promises to accomplish the goal of disease elimination, the absence of teeth arrives with its own set of challenges esthetically and functionally. How do we get her back to smiling with confidence again? How do we get her to eat what she wants when she wants comfortably? After a lengthy discussion with Terri the mutual goal simply stated was to get her mouth into a condition where she didn’t have to worry ever again about being embarrassed to eat in public, having difficulty chewing, her appearance when she smiles, diminished self esteem, looking older than she is (she’s graceful about her age but she didn’t want to look 10-20 years older), Before 24 WomanToWomanMagazine.com


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