Description
Although he was hesitant to fix his smile at first, Dale is glad his teeth are now healthy and strong.
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DALE: Hi, my name is Dale. I've never been a person that would come to the dentist just to get a pretty smile and it kind of has that connotation of vanity involved with it. And so over the years I've asked Dr. Heringer to treat my teeth functionally and for my health and he's done that very well. About five years ago he started talking about this front tooth that I had, which was a problem that I've had since I gotten my permanent teeth in as a little child. And the tooth, when it came in was pressed back so it went behind my bottom teeth and consequently locking my bite together so I couldn't move my jaw forward and back. He suggested to me that I should do something about that tooth and I kept putting it off because I thought it was frivolous money to put after a smile. And then he explained that that tooth was impacting three bottom teeth, chipping them and causing decay. And finally convinced me about a year ago that I should go for that. And so we did. I went through the Zoom! process and whitened my teeth eight shades. And then I came in for a four hour sit down with him. He went in an completely adjusted my bite and all my tooth lines and worked on the front tooth, brought that out and put a temporary on. I went home that night and ate, chewed food. I ate my first meal that I could actually chew food properly as an adult. And then the third part, to tie it in, is that the icing on the cake was that I can smile now. And I challenge you to go into any of my photographs, in my family albums or anything and find a picture of me after the age of six where I didn't smile with my mouth closed. And it was subconscious and psychological but there aren't any Christmas pictures of me, birthday pictures of me with my mouth open. So now I'm working on developing my smile muscles. But I guess what I'd like to say about the last two points is that any patient that is considering not having something done with their teeth because they feel that it is cosmetic. They should understand that if it doesn't look right then it's probably not working right. And I have the best movement in my jaw that I've had in my life. I'd just like to say thanks to Dr. Heringer and his folks here that have made this possible.
