The new way dentists are making impressions of teeth

CLEARWATER, Fla. – Dentists take thousands of impressions of teeth every year. Many use what’s known as, the goop. But now it’s out with the old and in with a new way to get a good impression of the teeth.

Terry Brown has loved to fish all of his life, but what he hates is going to the dentist. 

“Just choking, you know, making you feel like you’re choking,” said Brown.

He can’t stand the goop. It’s like adult Play-Doh dentists have used for years to make impressions of teeth. Well, the goop is gone at one Florida dentist’s office.

“We do not have to take impressions anymore with all that goop," said Melissa Collard at Dental Arts of Palm Harbor. 

“The scanner just makes things so much better for our patients as far as accuracy, as far as being able to visualize things,” said Dr. Larry Lieberman at Dental Arts of Palm Harbor.

Lieberman is talking about the ITero scanner. In a matter of seconds, a patient’s mouth appears.

“Put the camera on and go through the mouth, and we will get pictures of the teeth and we’ll stitch all the teeth together into an arch, into a mouth so that we can get a good bite registration. We can get a good rendering of the preparations of the teeth,” Lieberman said.

This is a big improvement over the goop’s accuracy, which tends to expand or shrink at the lab.

“Sometimes, you have more adjustments than we’d like,” Liberman said. 

Brown’s teeth were scanned when he was being fitted for Invisalign. 

“We’re really at a boom with the kind of things we can do in dentistry," Liberman said. "Whether it be scanners, whether it be implants, whether it be lasers."

Brown, an avid fisherman, loves this new technology hook, line and scanner.

The cost is the same to the patients with this scanner. There may be occasions when dentists need to use regular impression materials, but Lieberman said he’s getting to the point where they don’t need regular impressions.

Contributors to this news report include: Emily Maza Gleason, Field Producer, Roque Correa, Editor and Christopher Tilley, photographer.