What is that goo?
Whether you need a new denture, braces, or a single inlay restoration, you’ll encounter the “goo” dentists use to make an impression – the first step to a perfect likeness of your mouth.
In effect, the material you bite into registers a “negative” image, like a photograph. To make a positive model, a plaster-like “stone” is poured into the impression and allowed to set. And there you are.
Impression material, to work properly, must reproduce oral structures accurately, and be strong enough to hang together while it’s removed – without sucking out anything in the vicinity by accident. It can’t shrink or expand, either, or the end product (your new bridge, for instance) won’t fit.
And, of course, patients have to tolerate it. (In the “olden” days, some rubber materials had a peculiar sulfur odor, like a day at the mineral springs.)
Different materials are used for different procedures. But any impression takes savvy and practice to give us an ideal working model of you.
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