How Do Diagnostic Wax-Ups Make Dentistry Predictable?

So the diagnostic wax-up, why are they so valuable? Why do they make dentistry better?

Well, I don’t know how you do any form of dentistry, especially reconstructive type dentistry, complete dentistry, without doing a diagnostic wax-up.

Records are Key

You have to mount those casts. You have to take a good facebow so that you can put it on an articulator so that you take good records, good impressions. And then you have to pour them up, mount them accurately with a good bite, so that you can now investigate the crime scene. This is really CSI of the mouth. By doing the diagnostic wax-up, we get a chance to go in and look and see what the damage is and then figure out how to fix it. It’s what I get to spend my days doing nowadays.

Blueprint to Reality

I get to do diagnostics every day where I get to create, recreate from damaged teeth, new teeth. It is so rewarding to see the blueprint that we create (the wax-up) and knowing that we’re going to be able to turn that into provisionals that the patient gets to test drive, and ultimately, then we get to turn it into restorations.

I mean, I’m on the best side of the deal here. I get to be involved with you guys, but at the same time, I get to actually do that creation. The diagnostic wax-up, you can’t live without it.