Episode Transcript
Welcome to Trust Your Teeth,
a podcast by K Y T Dental Services.
In our True Case series,
we share real stories from real patients
to uncover the hidden reasons behind dental problems
and the long-term consequences that most people never see coming.
Today’s story is about Rob.
Rob was in his late fifties.
He had lost a few back teeth years ago.
At first, he thought it was no big deal.
He could still chew, still smile, and everything seemed fine.
So he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
He told himself, “I’ll get to it eventually,”
but life got busy.
Work, family, expenses.
There was always something else.
Years passed,
and the space where those molars used to be started to shift.
The neighboring teeth began tilting.
The bite collapsed,
and slowly,
his whole mouth changed.
What Rob didn’t realize
was that the longer you go without replacing missing teeth,
the more complicated the solution becomes.
When he finally came to us,
he was ready to do implants.
But we had to break the news.
It was too late.
At least, for implants alone.
There was not enough bone left in those areas,
and the space between his teeth had narrowed
too much for implants to even fit.
He asked if braces could fix it.
But the truth is,
his bite had collapsed so much
that it wasn’t just about moving teeth anymore.
To open the bite back up,
to restore the space between upper and lower jaws,
we had to increase his vertical dimension of occlusion.
And you can’t do that with braces alone.
You need crowns
on multiple teeth
to raise the bite
and stabilize the system.
It wasn’t just the back teeth either.
Over time,
Rob had started using his front teeth more to chew,
and that pressure had worn them down.
His smile had flattened,
and the edges of his front teeth were chipped,
shortened,
and uneven.
He admitted,
that was the moment he started to feel self-conscious.
Not just about function,
but about appearance too.
He wasn’t just trying to chew better.
He wanted to feel like himself again.
To smile with confidence.
To not worry about what food he could eat.
So,
he decided to move forward with a full-mouth reconstruction.
We used crowns,
carefully balanced across the bite,
to restore function,
protect what was left,
and make the whole system work again.
It wasn’t the quick fix he had once imagined,
but it was the right solution for where he was now.
Rob made the choice his future self would thank him for.
Because sometimes,
doing nothing is the most expensive decision of all.
In our next Essentials episode,
we’ll talk about abfraction,
and how pressure, imbalance, and grinding forces
can create notches near the gumline that look like cavities,
but are actually caused by stress — not sugar.
Because trusting your teeth, starts with knowing the truth.
