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Doctor Luis Obando - Nova Dental - Dental Crowns - San Jose Costa Rica
I did full smile reconstruction with dental crowns plus two bridges in San Jose, Costa Rica at Nova Dental with doctor Luis Obando. I'll describe separately all aspects below, including doctor's personality, color, shape, material used, etc. In general though, I highly recommend doctor Obando and his team.
Personality: if I could give dr Obando 15 stars out of 10, I would. He is the most amazing doctor you can imagine, professional, funny, calm. I almost regret i had only 5 appointments, as not only I wasn't scared but actually enjoyed every visit. He is very patient and will listen and try to do everything you ask for. However, I recommend you really come prepared and maybe have some pictures of what you are looking for, especially in terms of size/shape of your teeth.
Color: I wanted to have nice white teeth but I wanted them to look natural, so I was really scared to have teeth that look fake white. We ended up choosing the whitest color from the second line, which is the first line of non-bleached colors. To clarify, each line has three colors; first line includes bleached super white ones and second line has natural looking white ones. I'm really happy we chose the first white color from non-bleached ones, as it looks very white but at the same time you really can't tell it's fake, it looks super natural. I was afraid even this one would be too white and was thinking to get second whitest from non-bleached but I'm happy I didn't, as I think my color is really perfectly looking natural white one and it's not too white.
Shape/size: we really had to do some work to get to the shape that I wanted. My biggest fear was that I will have 'horse teeth' and that's exactly what I got on the first try. When I looked at it, I almost cried, as it looked exactly what I didn't want it to look like. All I knew is that it looked really fat and big and it was hard for me to explain what exactly had to be changed to make them look the way I wanted, that's why I say please come prepared with some pictures. We ended up shaving them making them thinner and much much MUCH shorter (almost two times shorter) than what the lab originally did. After it was done, I was really happy with how it looked at the end. It seems like the lab usually makes longer teeth for patients who like that, as you can always make them shorter if this is what you want like it was in my case. In total you will have several appointments where adjustments will be made (4 in my case).
The feel: my teeth feel completely natural and if I didn't know I have crowns, I wouldn't be able to tell by looking at them or by the way it feels in my mouth.
Bridges: I had two teeth missing on the lower teeth, one on each side at the back of my mouth. Overall I think it was a big mistake doing bridges and if you trying to decide between bridges and implants, please don't do bridges. To be fair, doctor Obando tried to convince me to do implants, as they are stronger than bridges. I didn't want to have implants, as it would require me to come back after several weeks to put crowns on top of implants and I wanted to do everything in one visit. Strength of an implant versus a crown wasn't a big concern for me, as I wasn't planning to eat anything hard with these teeth. However, something I didn't know before is that bridges feel completely unnatural. It's a construction of 3 teeth on each side (crown from two sides plus the bridge in the middle for the missing tooth), it feels as if i had a large cube on each side which just feels completely fake and I always feel it in my mouth. Also one thing I didn't know before is that it will be completely flat on top, meaning instead of having a shape of a back tooth on top it's really just flat like a cube. Because of this I simply can't bite or chew anything with these teeth and when I say anything, I mean not even something soft like tomato or pizza. At the end, I end up not using back teeth at all and eating everything with my front teeth which is of course not comfortable. All in all, please avoid bridges at all cost. It's better to have a missing tooth or do implants in two visits than have bridges which are there for the look but feel terrible and are completely useless when eating.
Material used: I used EMAX for all the crowns and zirconium for the bridges. I'm very happy with EMAX. One thing I have to mention is that it seems doctor Obando would choose Zirconium by default, unless you ask him to do otherwise, so please don't forget to discuss it if it's important to you.
Pain: I'm really scared of pain but doctor Obando gave me a sleeping pill (you don't fully sleep but become kind of sleepy and less conscious) and used standard numbing, so at the end I didn't feel pain at all, not even a little bit, so please don't be afraid of it.
Pills: I recommend you ask the office in advance if you will be needing any pills after your appointments, as the last thing you want after the procedure is to walk around looking for them. I've been told to get just Ibuprofen and luckily I had some pills with me but depending on the procedure you may need something else, so again I think it's better to ask in advance.
Process and number of appointments: I had everything done in 7 business days. My appointments were on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then again Monday and Tuesday of the following week. First appointment was the longest one where we discussed color and shape and did all the shaving. He then put temporary plastic teeth on me. Second appointment: we tried the first set of teeth from the lab (not from real material yet) and cut them shorter based on my comments. Third appointment: we tried actual teeth from the lab with real material and actual color and did adjustments in terms of shape/length. 4th appointment: cementing. 5th appointment: we did some minor adjustments.
Overall, I highly recommend doctor Luis Obando. I'm very happy with my new smile and the most important thing is that it looks very nice but really natural. Even I already forgot this is fake and think these are my own teeth :)
Personality: if I could give dr Obando 15 stars out of 10, I would. He is the most amazing doctor you can imagine, professional, funny, calm. I almost regret i had only 5 appointments, as not only I wasn't scared but actually enjoyed every visit. He is very patient and will listen and try to do everything you ask for. However, I recommend you really come prepared and maybe have some pictures of what you are looking for, especially in terms of size/shape of your teeth.
Color: I wanted to have nice white teeth but I wanted them to look natural, so I was really scared to have teeth that look fake white. We ended up choosing the whitest color from the second line, which is the first line of non-bleached colors. To clarify, each line has three colors; first line includes bleached super white ones and second line has natural looking white ones. I'm really happy we chose the first white color from non-bleached ones, as it looks very white but at the same time you really can't tell it's fake, it looks super natural. I was afraid even this one would be too white and was thinking to get second whitest from non-bleached but I'm happy I didn't, as I think my color is really perfectly looking natural white one and it's not too white.
Shape/size: we really had to do some work to get to the shape that I wanted. My biggest fear was that I will have 'horse teeth' and that's exactly what I got on the first try. When I looked at it, I almost cried, as it looked exactly what I didn't want it to look like. All I knew is that it looked really fat and big and it was hard for me to explain what exactly had to be changed to make them look the way I wanted, that's why I say please come prepared with some pictures. We ended up shaving them making them thinner and much much MUCH shorter (almost two times shorter) than what the lab originally did. After it was done, I was really happy with how it looked at the end. It seems like the lab usually makes longer teeth for patients who like that, as you can always make them shorter if this is what you want like it was in my case. In total you will have several appointments where adjustments will be made (4 in my case).
The feel: my teeth feel completely natural and if I didn't know I have crowns, I wouldn't be able to tell by looking at them or by the way it feels in my mouth.
Bridges: I had two teeth missing on the lower teeth, one on each side at the back of my mouth. Overall I think it was a big mistake doing bridges and if you trying to decide between bridges and implants, please don't do bridges. To be fair, doctor Obando tried to convince me to do implants, as they are stronger than bridges. I didn't want to have implants, as it would require me to come back after several weeks to put crowns on top of implants and I wanted to do everything in one visit. Strength of an implant versus a crown wasn't a big concern for me, as I wasn't planning to eat anything hard with these teeth. However, something I didn't know before is that bridges feel completely unnatural. It's a construction of 3 teeth on each side (crown from two sides plus the bridge in the middle for the missing tooth), it feels as if i had a large cube on each side which just feels completely fake and I always feel it in my mouth. Also one thing I didn't know before is that it will be completely flat on top, meaning instead of having a shape of a back tooth on top it's really just flat like a cube. Because of this I simply can't bite or chew anything with these teeth and when I say anything, I mean not even something soft like tomato or pizza. At the end, I end up not using back teeth at all and eating everything with my front teeth which is of course not comfortable. All in all, please avoid bridges at all cost. It's better to have a missing tooth or do implants in two visits than have bridges which are there for the look but feel terrible and are completely useless when eating.
Material used: I used EMAX for all the crowns and zirconium for the bridges. I'm very happy with EMAX. One thing I have to mention is that it seems doctor Obando would choose Zirconium by default, unless you ask him to do otherwise, so please don't forget to discuss it if it's important to you.
Pain: I'm really scared of pain but doctor Obando gave me a sleeping pill (you don't fully sleep but become kind of sleepy and less conscious) and used standard numbing, so at the end I didn't feel pain at all, not even a little bit, so please don't be afraid of it.
Pills: I recommend you ask the office in advance if you will be needing any pills after your appointments, as the last thing you want after the procedure is to walk around looking for them. I've been told to get just Ibuprofen and luckily I had some pills with me but depending on the procedure you may need something else, so again I think it's better to ask in advance.
Process and number of appointments: I had everything done in 7 business days. My appointments were on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then again Monday and Tuesday of the following week. First appointment was the longest one where we discussed color and shape and did all the shaving. He then put temporary plastic teeth on me. Second appointment: we tried the first set of teeth from the lab (not from real material yet) and cut them shorter based on my comments. Third appointment: we tried actual teeth from the lab with real material and actual color and did adjustments in terms of shape/length. 4th appointment: cementing. 5th appointment: we did some minor adjustments.
Overall, I highly recommend doctor Luis Obando. I'm very happy with my new smile and the most important thing is that it looks very nice but really natural. Even I already forgot this is fake and think these are my own teeth :)