“My crown broke off during lunch . . .”
Mr. Ottmar Beck, 71 years old, Munich

It happened forty years ago whilst skiing. The sun was shining and I was in high spirits up until the moment that another skier went into me.
I was fortunate, just a few bruises but nothing else – apart from the fact that a large piece of my front tooth had broken off. The broken tooth was fixed with a crown and my incident was forgotten soon after, up until a year ago. Then, during a lunch, my crown broke off pretty close to my gum. To put another crown on was out of the question as there wasn’t much left of the tooth onto which to fix the replacement tooth.

There were two possible solutions for my problem: A bridge, which would have meant filing the two healthy neighbouring teeth, which optically, would have not been the best solution, or an implant. I didn’t have to think about it for long and decided to go for the implant.

I already knew Dr. Bartels from the past, so I arranged my first appointment with him. We were quickly in agreement with the treatment process and soon after I was sitting in the treatment chair. During this first visit and under local anaesthetic, the remainders of the tooth and the old root were extracted and the synthetic titanium implant was immediately inserted.

After three months the implant was embedded into the jaw so that we could continue the treatment. An impression of the synthetic tooth crown was made and then Dr. Bartels, together with the dental technician, meticulously matched the tooth colour. At the time, I thought it was a waste of time, but today I am pleased that the two of them spent so much time on getting the colour right. One thing is for sure: nobody notices that instead of a real front tooth I have an implant with a crown, that’s how real the tooth replacement looks.