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Dental Office Visit #2
Final Impressions
Final upper and lower impressions are made utilizing the custom (individual) impression trays received from the dental laboratory. The impressions may be sent to the dental laboratory with instructions to pour the master casts and to construct stabilized baseplates with wax occlusion rims, completing this phase of the dental office procedures.
Impressions are a critical component of successful denture therapy. Here are a few tips that you may find helpful:
- Before final impressions, make sure the denture(s) is removed and remains out of the mouth for about an hour. You will get a more accurate impression by letting the tissues "rest" for 60-90 minutes. The best way to do this is to ask the patient to leave the denture out of the mouth overnight and schedule the denture impression first thing in the morning.
- Some dental professionals feel that it is mandatory to place "pressure release" holes in custom trays, and/or to place a wax spacer for final denture impressions. An abstract on this topic was published recently in the Journal of Dental Research.¹ The authors found that the most important factor related to pressure on the tissue was the viscosity of the impression material, not the presence or absence of holes or "relief" in the impression tray. So place holes and "relief" if you like, but use a light body impression material for the final impression.
¹Masri et al. Journal of Dental Research, Volume 80, Special Issue (AADR Abstracts), January 2001, Abstract #1625
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