Smile Specialties

A lower denture that has started to rock when you chew. A bite quietly worn down across twenty years until the front teeth meet edge to edge. A bridge that has failed and taken one of its supporting teeth with it. These are the problems that end up at a prosthodontic practice, and what they share is that no single tooth can be sorted out in isolation. Tooth position, the height the jaws close to, and how a whole arch of replacements will look and work together all have to be settled before anything is prepared.

Smile Specialties works at that level of the problem, and Dr. Jennifer A. Reed has been doing this for more than two decades. The replacement side of the list is the broad part: implants, fixed All-on-4 arches, implant-retained dentures, conventional dentures and partials, crowns and bridges, and extractions, together with the periodontal groundwork that often has to happen first. Veneers, bonding and whitening cover the cosmetic side, and Invisalign, TMJ therapy and sleep apnea appliances round out what the office treats.

The difference between a conventional denture and an implant-retained one is worth understanding before you choose. A conventional denture rests on gum and ridge, held largely by suction and adhesive, and it keeps working only while the ridge underneath holds its shape, which it slowly stops doing once the teeth are gone. Implants anchor the prosthesis into bone instead, so the appliance does not shift while you chew and the jaw keeps some of the loading it would otherwise lose. The cost gap between the two is real, and so is the difference in what you can comfortably eat.

Full-arch work is also a longer project than the advertising around it suggests. Implants placed in one surgical visit are often fitted with a fixed temporary bridge the same day, but that temporary is acrylic, deliberately kept out of heavy function, and lived with for several months on softer food while bone integrates around the fixtures. Only then is the final prosthesis made, and it is made after your bite, your speech and the position of the teeth have been tested in the temporary. Treat that middle stretch as part of the treatment rather than an inconvenience, because it is where errors get caught.

The practice occupies a suite in a professional building on South 70th Street in southeast Lincoln, straightforward to reach from the Van Dorn and 70th Street corridors. Hours are Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday from nine to five, with a shorter Friday ending at two, and time is held back each day for emergencies. Dental insurance including Ameritas and Delta Dental is accepted, and CareCredit is available for treatment staged over months.