Lee Ann Brady, DMD's Dental Blog

  • Home
  • About Dr. Lee Ann Brady
  • Dental Practice
  • Categories
    • Dental Materials
    • Esthetic Dentistry
    • Occlusion/TMD
    • Practice of Dentistry
    • Preventive Dentistry
    • Restorative Dentistry
    • Restorative Techniques
    • Treatment Planning
    • Videos
    • A-Z Topic List
  • Speaker’s Packet Request
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Esthetic Dentistry / Implant Soft Tissue Lab Communication

Implant Soft Tissue Lab Communication

By Lee Ann Brady on 10.04.11Category: Esthetic Dentistry, Restorative Dentistry

Flexitime Final Implant Impression

After all of the time and effort that goes into developing the gingival tissues around an implant provisional, the challenge is how to capture that information for the laboratory technician. In an instant once the provisional has been unscrewed, and the pressure on the tissue relieved the tissue begins to deform. I have tried multiple techniques to capture an accurate soft tissue impression, and despite working quickly the technician always has to alter the gingival mask due to distortion. The only accurate way to capture the soft tissue contours is to duplicate the shape and dimension of the provisional where it was in contact with the gingiva.

With this in mind, I do all of my records on the day of the implant fixture final impression with the provisional still in place. these include taking an impression of the patient approved provisional, facebow, photos and sizing the tray.

Implant Provisional in Stone

Implant Provisional and analog in StatStone

Once my impression tray is ready to go, I have the light body material at the ready. As I am unscrewing the provisional, my assistant is ready with the impression coping and the light body. The instant I remove the provisional, I place the impression coping, and then inject light body around it to capture the soft tissue. Once the light body is set, we can take a radiograph to confirm seating of the impression coping. Once we know the coping was fully seated, we now load the tray with heavy body, inject any additional light body we need and pick up the original light body, which has been holding tissue form and the coping in a final impression.

Implant Soft Tissue Model

Implant Soft Tissue Model

Even with this technique, there is some tissue slumping. In order to send the laboratory everything they need to be successful, I also create a soft tissue model using the provisional. I attach an analog to the provisional, then seat the analog into a medicine cup that I have filled with Statstone,  so that the emergence profile is in the stone. Once the stone has fully set, I unscrew the provisional, leaving the analog and a perfect soft tissue impression behind to send to the laboratory.

Related

Share

Comments

  1. Jim Merriman says

    October 4, 2011 at 10:35 AM

    Thanks, Lee. Do you ever take the impression with the impression coping altered with composite using the technique you suggest for the soft tissue model as a way of negating the slumping issue?

    Reply
    • Lee Ann Brady says

      October 4, 2011 at 6:25 PM

      I haven’t done this and I would love to hear your technique. Sound slike you customize the impression coping, but how do you mimic the soft tissue profile????

      Reply
  2. Arfeen says

    March 13, 2017 at 10:39 PM

    It would be great to see a video of the method you have descrived.

    Thank you for the article

    Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel

Search

Recent Posts

  • Retraction Paste Technique Sensitivity
  • The Next Generation of Glass Ionomer Cements
  • A Fantastic New Temporary Cement
  • Tissue Blanching When Seating An Implant Restoration
  • Is It Time To Get An Intra-oral Impression Scanner?
  • Does Your Team Order The Dental Materials You Want?

Recent Comments

  • Shavon on Allergic Reaction To A Dental Cleaning?
  • Joe on Stick Bite: Why and How
  • Joan Johnson on Post & Core’s Coming Loose?
  • Rosemary on Ugh, The Margins Are Open!
  • Sakshi on Removing An e.max Restoration
  • Jeremy Montrose on Ugh, The Margins Are Open!

Policies

Terms of Use

Privacy Policy

Cancellations and Refunds

Security Seal

© 2020 Lee Ann Brady LLC, All Rights Reserved Site by CSL