Digital Smile Design Moldova: Smile Planning in Chișinău

Classic aesthetic treatment was long built on the doctor's experience and the patient's verbal description. The problem is that words such as 'slightly longer' or 'lighter' mean something different to everyone. Digital Smile Design turns your wishes into a visual project. The doctor takes a series of photos of your face and teeth, sometimes a short video of you talking and smiling, and draws lines over them in special software: the facial midline, the pupil line, the lip line and the outline of the future teeth.

On this basis we work out the proportions: the width and length of the central incisors (the two front teeth), their relation to the neighbouring teeth, how much of the teeth shows at rest and when smiling, and the gum line. In our work these are the parameters that form the basis of the aesthetic analysis. DSD takes function into account as well as beauty: the new shape of the teeth must work correctly when you chew and must not disturb your bite.

The project is most useful before treatment that changes the look of the front teeth, such as placing veneers and crowns on front teeth. We recommend it if your teeth are worn and have become shorter, if you have gaps between teeth, chips, an uneven edge or an asymmetric gum line, and also if it is hard for you to say what kind of smile you want. Before the project we need to treat decay and gum inflammation: veneers are not placed with active decay, so we first carry out caries treatment and professional teeth cleaning.

If your teeth are healthy and you only want to change their colour, teeth whitening is enough and no shape project is needed. A small chip or unevenness on one tooth is often corrected with a composite filling. A badly damaged tooth is restored with a crown, and with crooked teeth we first discuss alignment. Which route suits you, the doctor explains after the examination.

Photos and the consultation take one visit. The digital project is prepared in a few days, and the wax model is made after you approve the project. The mock-up takes about an hour: we place the model, you look at the result, and if needed the doctor marks the changes at once. The mock-up is easy to remove and does not damage the teeth, because it is made without preparing them. After the project is approved, the doctor moves on to treatment: preparation for veneers or crowns.

Our doctors plan aesthetic treatment, and our chief doctor, the prosthodontist (crown and bridge specialist) Vladislav Casian (more than 20 years of practice), places veneers and crowns. A smile project helps the doctor and the patient speak the same language: instead of guesses, every decision is made on a visible model. You can read more about this field in the aesthetic dentistry section.

If you want to change not only the shape but also the colour of your teeth, we usually whiten them before the design, so that the shade of the veneers matches your new tooth colour. If you have old crowns on the front teeth, the doctor assesses whether they can be replaced, for example with zirconia crowns, and takes this into account in the overall project.