(WXYZ) - For someone with dental problems, a full set of veneers or crowns can easily run $30,000. But now there’s a lower price alternative that’s bringing smiles to many faces.
Rowauna Hollins has an outgoing personality. But she had begun to stifle her laughs and smiles.
She told us, “I had a tooth that was turning brown and I had to get it pulled. And I didn’t smile as much. Now I smile a lot more.”
That’s because Rowauna got a snap-on smile. It’s a relatively new procedure that gives patients an easy, inexpensive alternative to dentures, crowns or veneers.
Her dentist, Dr. William Woodruff, explained, “It’s a covering that goes over your whole arch, covers all your teeth.”
The dentist takes an impression of your mouth. A mold is made and sent to the lab and in about two weeks, you get a set of teeth that fit right over your own.
According to Dr. Woodruff, “The snap-on smile is functional. You can eat with it you can sleep with it; you can wear it at night.”
In some cases, the snap-on smile can even be used to make crooked teeth look straight…all without grinding down a person’s own teeth.
As Dr. Woodruff explained, “It covers up spaces or gaps, it covers stained or discolored teeth, it covers chipped or fractured teeth.”
But it isn’t right for everyone. You can’t have serious gum disease and you need to have enough natural teeth to provide a good foundation.
John Lewis was a perfect candidate. And he said the nine-hundred dollar price tag made this the perfect product for him.
“I always had a gap like the Grand Canyon,” he told us, “And toward the end of my sales career I broke the two right side teeth out completely.”
For a salesman, this was a serious career issue. “You can’t sit in front of a customer if your mouth looks like a rocky mountain range you just can't do it, you have to have a decent smile.”
So about three months ago, John got a snap on smile. “It’s working out really well. I used to have the closed mouth smile. You know and now I smile at everything. Rocks, trees, buses you name it.”
