Good Neighbor Podcast: Milton & More
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of Milton, Crabapple, and Hickory Flat
Good Neighbor Podcast: Milton & More
Meet Dr. David Mastro of Alluring Cosmetic Dentistry
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Stacey Poehler.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody. I'm very excited to be chatting with Dr David Mastro from Alluring Cosmetic Dentistry. Welcome, dr Mastro.
Speaker 3:Thank you, glad to be here with you, stacey.
Speaker 2:The first thing we want to know is a little bit about your background and how you got into the field of dentistry.
Speaker 3:Okay, basically I didn't start out going into dentistry. I went to school and I thought I wanted to be an accountant and I went into it it and after two years in college in accounting, I decided I really hated accounting and I didn't want to do that. And so I wound up taking a bunch of tests and it said I had a high manual dexterity with my hands and mind and visual, spatial relationships and things, and that I would be a great surgeon, dentist, carpenter, anything that you would use your hands and mind. And so I said I think I might like to do that and that's what started me thinking about going into dentistry. All right, so I didn't want to be a physician. I didn't want to do a lot of other things that they said I could do. Anyway, like I didn't want to be a carpenter, because it just sounded too hard. Anyway, I worked in construction one summer down in South Florida doing a bunch of work in the hot heat out there. I decided I wanted to be in air conditioning.
Speaker 2:As good a reason as any. Where did you go to dental school?
Speaker 3:I went to Emory.
Speaker 2:Nice, here in Atlanta, what made you want to specialize in cosmetic dentistry?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was always real good at making teeth look like teeth. Even in dental school I could carve teeth that really looked like teeth. They actually used me as an instructor at Emory to teach the other students how to carve teeth. Wow, that's how it started doing that. And then I just it came very naturally to me to make teeth look like teeth and it sounds like it'd be easy, but it really isn't easy to do that. So that's how it started.
Speaker 3:And then I got into practice and did an internship and did all the residency things, all the specialties and that was in the military, and got out of the military and I was able to do cosmetic dentistry in the army believe it or not.
Speaker 3:I was in a little clinic in downtown st louis but we got to do all the special, all the branches of the military there in St Louis, and so I had all officers that I worked on and so they asked for cosmetic dentistry and I was able to do it and I did it and got a lot of experience in the military doing it.
Speaker 3:Then I got out of military and I just started doing what I did in the military and I had some assistants who worked with me and they saw some of the work that I did and they'd worked in other offices and they commented to me, like you're really good at cosmetic dentistry, that's what you ought to pursue. And I says, yeah, I really enjoy doing it and that's how I got started doing it and then I just progressed from there and I do all phases of dentistry, but my most favorite phase is cosmetic dentistry because it comes very natural to me as well. My assistant today I said why would I have gone into cosmetic dentistry? She says because you're an artist. Okay, that that's a big part of it. You do have to be an artist to do it. And that's what I do is artwork on patients.
Speaker 2:That's great. I imagine you've been in the field quite a while. What changes have you seen over the years?
Speaker 3:I've been a dentist about 45 years total, with Army and everything, so I've been in it a long time. Tremendous changes in the last decade or so. The technology in dentistry has changed so much that what I learned in school, it's just antiquated compared to what's out there today. So we embrace the technology. I started doing all the technology parts of this when it first started out Computerized digital dentistry oh, this was over 20 years ago. They started doing digital x-rays, so we always bought the latest technology and incorporated it into the practice.
Speaker 3:But back then you had to pretty much have a lab to do the work, send your work out to the lab, put patients in temporary things and then wait for the cases to come back. And it was always a nuisance to me and it always required me fixing what came back from the labs because it wasn't very artistic. I didn't think so I would re-carve everything that came back to me. But then I saw the technology started improving and they came out with a machine from the CEREC company. It's called a CEREC machine and you could actually do your own crowns with the machine and I said, wow, this would be great if I could. Just if I've got a car of it anyway. Why don't I just do it on the computer and we'll build it and make it and be able to put it all in one day. And that's where we started. Well, we started doing that, and that made dentistry a lot of fun for me, because I was able to do what I wanted to do without having to ever use a lab. And that's how we got into the technology side of dentistry, and it's tremendously changed in recent years. Everything's changed. The root canal procedures have changed. How, recent years, everything's changed. The root canal procedures have changed. How you make your crowns changed. The materials that are used today are so much superior to what they used to be cosmetically too, but also strength-wise and so it's just totally different from what it used to be, and I love it.
Speaker 3:I love doing the dentistry. I'm an artist. When I'm doing it, I'm creating and I see the instant results, like I'm a sculptor with the teeth and can do it, and the machinery lets me do it. We have the full lab here in the office, so we make everything right here on the spot with it. I do preliminary work with models and things that we 3D print, and it's all the high-tech stuff too, but then from these models. We'll do wax ups on the models and I'll change people's mouth on the models. They'll tell me what they want and I'll give it to them on a model and show them on the models what this is, what you will look like when we do it. And then the technology allows us to copy that model and duplicate it and make the crowns out of it to look just like the model, and so there's no guesswork with it, because they can see it and we produce it the same way. Patients thoroughly enjoy it. They love coming in and getting their work done in one visit.
Speaker 2:That's very convenient oh yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 3:Less anesthetic needs to be used, less visits, but the end result is super good. I'm so pleased with how well the fits and everything finishes and everything that you always wanted in your work and this technology does it. We've embraced that and it's been wonderful. Patients love it. We love it.
Speaker 2:And how do you go about educating yourself and training yourself on all that new technology?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was a big deal. That's a there's a big learning curve to do that, I would say. For a dentist to be able to really do good cosmetic dentistry on that it's about a three-year process of really practicing with it and learning and just doing it and learning from. This can go wrong or that can go wrong, but when it does go wrong you know how to fix it. There's courses that you take when you purchase this technology, which we spend a lot of time going to classes and courses and training on it too, and they come into your office also and they train you in your own environment. And unfortunately not a lot of dentists do it because the learning curve is so long to really get good at it. And so a lot of dentists will use the technology but they'll still send it to a lab and have the lab be able to do it instead of good at it. And so a lot of dentists will use the technology but they'll still send it to a lab and have the lab be able to do it instead of them doing it. But I like doing it my way because I'm the artist that's doing it and I'll get what I produce in my mind and the end result is there and I visualize these cases for patients before I ever start them.
Speaker 3:If they tell me this is what I want, I will then start in my mind saying I'll look at their teeth and I'll begin to visualize what will this end result look like if I do this and this to it, and will this patient like it?
Speaker 3:And what I do is I'll make several sets of models and we'll change one set.
Speaker 3:We'll make all the changes that they ask for as I'm looking at their teeth that might be crooked or spaces or missing teeth or decayed teeth, all kind of problems, and then visualizing what we have to do to get it there and then producing it on a model, using wax and things to actually carve these things, just like a sculpture would carve something, doing it on the model, and then the computer will take it from there after I do the work in the patient's mouth and reproduce what I've done on those models.
Speaker 3:And so you've got to be able to artistically visualize the end result before you ever start some of these cases, because some of them are really complicated. They come in with some horrendous problems and they want to have this beautiful smile and you've got to be able to visualize. How can I get up from this point to that point? I've tried to bring in some associates along the way and I will give them a set of models like that and I'll say what would you do to fix this? You have to have that natural artistic ability and spatial relationships to be able to visualize things and turn it into something else it's like a gift or talent.
Speaker 2:It's not something that you can teach're very lucky to have it and have been able to tap into it.
Speaker 3:It is a talent and it is a gift. You can train some people to be able to do it, as long as they have the natural ability to be an artist too. If you take a person that's not an artist, I don't think they can do it, because they're dependent on a lab to do it. You've got to still visualize and give the lab the work that you need. The preparations and everything have to be correct for the lab to be able to produce something for you. So you still have to be able to do that in cosmetic dentistry, and it is a gift and it is a talent that goes hand in hand with a lot of artistic work that goes in it and a lot of science behind it too.
Speaker 2:I imagine that when you finish with a patient and they see the transformation, it can be very emotional for them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've had patients cry because they were so thrilled that what they look like. I had one patient who got up and danced up and down the office hallways. He was so thrilled of his change and he never would smile. And he was out in the public eye in the movie industry and he never would smile in any of his photographs. After he got his teeth fixed he smiled like a storm. Every picture you ever see of him he's always smiling real big and beautiful smile. He's thrilled with it. So it does change. It's a life-changing experience for patients and it's almost instant.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It goes from oh really bad to wow, and that's what we try to do is give them that wow factor, which we do do a lot of cosmetic dentistry wow factor, which we do do a lot of cosmetic dentistry, yeah, and I imagine that through the artistry you're really trying to keep it looking natural and to compliment someone's facial features. Can you talk about that a little bit and how you make sure things really fit the person Right?
Speaker 3:Yes. So when we do our first consult, I ask the patient what is it you want me to do for you? What don't you like about your teeth? Is it you want me to do for you? What don't you like about your teeth? What would you want me to do to make it look like what you think it should look like? And they'll begin to tell me I want you to do this, lengthen this, or change that, or make it wide or make it narrower, do all these things.
Speaker 3:And then I take notes and everything. They're telling me what they want and I would go in and make those models and I would start making the changes and visualize what they just told me, what they want, and start creating those teeth on the model. And then I'll go back to the patients and then say here is what you told me you wanted. This is what you look like now on this model. Now, this is where you're going to go with these teeth. Is this what you're thinking? That's what you wanted. 99.9% of them take it. They say, yes, that's what I want. Once in a while I'll get somebody real fussy and they might say can you do a little tweak here? Yeah, we can always tweak, do that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, folks have misconceptions about cosmetic dentistry. What are some of the ones that you see that you feel like people just maybe aren't understanding the process and what you're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, cosmetic dentistry is more than just the teeth. A lot of times cosmetic dentistry can be just something as simple as a filling in patient's mouth. To me, cosmetic dentistry starts at the back of the mouth and it's the entire mouth. It's not just the front six teeth, it's everything, anything that might show. But you've got gum tissue. The gum tissue has to look beautiful when you're done. You can't have gum tissue that's going up and down and up and down across the front. It needs to be even across the whole front to complement the smile. The gum tissue is the frame around the picture, so to speak, and that highlights the teeth themselves. So you got to treat the gums properly. You got to take care of that. You got to make sure that when you're done with the teeth you don't have long teeth on one side, because the gums are receded, and short teeth on the other side. And you got to make the teeth flow with the eyes. They're not. Teeth are going crooked this direction, sloping down on one side, and their eyes are sloping the other one. You got to match everything when you're doing it. Some patients have high lip lines, some patients have low lip lines. Some patients hardly show their gums. Other patients. They show their gums all over the place. So you know every patient's different. But yes, you do have to match the teeth and the gums to the overall facial features of the patient. There's things like a woman's teeth might have little different shapes to the edges and things a little softer, a little rounder in the corners or things like that. And then some men you want nice square teeth on them, just more of a masculine look. You don't want to put a big masculine look on a lady and you don't want to put a feminine look on a man. You want to go with what looks best on that particular patient. If a patient asks me I want this or I want that, I'll have a lot of patients that they say I want my teeth totally straight across the front. In other words they're all the same length. In other words they look like piano keys, okay, all the way across. And I tell them that's not very aesthetic, that's not very cosmetic, that's an old look. People get teeth like that when they get older and they wear their teeth down to flat teeth all the way across. You don't want to do that to your teeth. It's not going to improve anything for you. And so I begin to teach them what is aesthetic, what is cosmetic, and then we take pictures of them and I can show them, patients, that we here's their before, here's their after, do you like that look? And we'll go from pictures and things, so to speak, and let them say, yeah, I like the look of that. So I want those lateral teeth up a little bit shorter than a central's, and that's a youthful look.
Speaker 3:The thing teeth come in not flat and square, but they come in with lobes on them naturally, and these are called mammulons. In nature they're formed. That's what forms the teeth. And you have that on these teeth and we put in detail and anatomy on the front of the teeth. It isn't just a flat, shiny, white surface, there's all kinds of details and carving that goes on the front of these teeth. And that's the beauty of the technology that we have. I'll put it in wax and it'll duplicate that and it'll carve it in the porcelain we have. I'll put it in wax and it'll duplicate that and it'll carve it in the porcelain, and then. So that's another part of cosmetics is you got to make teeth look like teeth and not crowns. The biggest compliment I get from patients is everybody tells me what a beautiful smile I have. It's not what a beautiful, beautiful teeth, so much is what a beautiful smile you have. Or, boy, you sure look a lot younger than you used to. What'd you do?
Speaker 3:And they don't really pick up that the patients have had their teeth done. This is what I try to achieve is teeth that look like teeth and they don't look like crowns. I want them to be as natural as we can possibly make them. The thing I fight most with patients is the color. They want them to be as natural as we can possibly make them. The thing I fight most with patients is the color. They want them as white as you can get them, and sometimes we do it, and sometimes it depends on the patient and their complexion, their eye color and things like that that they can get away with super white.
Speaker 3:But some people try to go super white and they shouldn't. You know, it's just it's the first thing you see when you walk in the room and they smile is always a mouthful of teeth. We don't do that to patients. If they can't carry that color, I'll tell them that's going to be a mistake for you. I can make your teeth beautiful. You can have white teeth and we'll get them as white as you can naturally get them, but don't go overboard and make it toilet bowl white, because it looks awful. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So, anyway, that's the color, but we everybody wants whiter teeth and we usually do give them whiter teeth, but there's a fine line between two white and a natural white and we try to stay in line where it's. Yeah, I really do want them to look like beautiful teeth when I'm done, but more than that, even just a beautiful smile, that changes their life. And it's Diane, my wife, is a counselor and she says I've worked with patients for years trying to improve something and you can do it in one afternoon. You change their entire lives and their whole, their whole personal perception of themselves changes instantly. So it is, it's a life-changing experience for patients when they do this kind of work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it definitely helps people build confidence oh yeah, it's a big confidence builder.
Speaker 3:Very much, yeah, but I always loved the thing. Did anybody notice your teeth? And they say, no, they don't know. They just say you have a pretty smile. I said that's the biggest compliment you could ever have right there, not somebody saying, oh, I see your new crowns.
Speaker 2:For sure, that's not what you want so what are the common procedures that you're performing there in the office? Okay, and maybe beyond that too, to give us an idea of the full scope of everything you do yeah, dennis, there's different ways to do cosmetic work.
Speaker 3:One is orthodontics you move teeth around, which we do with clear trays, and that's one approach. If patients have really nice teeth but they're a little crooked or something, you can do it with some minor movement here and there and straighten their teeth out with that. The other way is bleaching teeth, just whitening their teeth with common bleaching agents that are available today that can when them up a little bit. We do veneers, porcelain veneers, we do full crowns, and these are areas that usually, when patients have worn teeth that are really flattened down or really short now because they've worn them down, some of those patients really need to be rebuilt. Their mouth need to be opened up some.
Speaker 3:I had one patient recently that he had worn his teeth down so flat he probably removed about half of the length of his upper teeth and half of the length of his lower teeth. His lower jaw started protruding forward and turned into what we call class three occlusion, because his lower jaw, because it closed down so much, it's swinging on an arc back there. As it kept closing more and more, his jaw kept going further and further out and his lips were now bunching up in the front and he had all kind of lines on his face and everything because his vertical dimension of his face was squished. In short, we opened his bite up by re-lengthening all his teeth. We had to do it with crowns because he'd worn all his teeth down anyway. We opened his bite and his jaw went back into position. His lips became built out like they should have been, all the lines and creases around his mouth disappeared.
Speaker 3:His wife couldn't believe it. She says you do look 10 years younger. Honestly, it totally changed his facial features. And people tell him all the time boy, you look a lot younger. And that's the kind of work I enjoy, doing that kind. But we do other things bonding little composites and we do implants and restoring implants with all kinds Root canals. We do all that. The new technology in root canals is amazing what can be done and how smoothly and quickly and efficient they are and how predictable it is today compared to what it used to be. And then your regular old white fillings just fillings and teeth. They've taken out the old silver things that were used years ago and some still use them. People usually don't want those, but every phase of dentistry we do here.
Speaker 2:And is there some tips you can give people maybe on how to maintain their smiles or prevent some of these problems?
Speaker 3:Yeah, one of the things that causes a lot of wear on patients is they use toothpaste with silica in it. It's sand. So when you brush your teeth with paste with silica and it's real finely ground sand and you go to bed at night, you got these fine sand particles in your mouth and people like to grind on it in their sleep and they grind their teeth down. And that's usually the number one cause of what causes the loss of the vertical dimension of patients faces is they're wearing their teeth flat and down and their face sinks in. And so I tell patients try to get a toothpaste that doesn't have silica in it, which is really hard to do anymore because almost everyone has it now, so you have to go out of your way. I'm not going to give you any names of pastes, but I just say look on, look on the box. If it says silica, I wouldn't use it. That's number one cause of that causes more destruction to people's mouths than cavities.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it really is, and I see that more than anything is how much wear is on patient's teeth. So we use night guards on patients that they can sleep in, so they can't grind against the sand at night. That's another thing that helps a lot with cosmetic work. What other things do we have the tips on? Oh, how to floss, right, do you know how many people don't know how to floss? They?
Speaker 1:say oh yeah, I know how to floss.
Speaker 3:You show me and they show me. And they wrap the string all around their whole hands and everything. They're trying to get two fists in their mouth and trying to floss. So there's a technique to floss. That's a proper way to floss and I show patients how you hold it, what finger to wrap it on, how you control the string, the distance between your fingers, so you can get into every surface of every tooth in your entire mouth. And it's easy to do. And probably 95% of the patients out there don't know how to floss. So I'm one of these days I'm going to do a floss video on, put it on YouTube on how to floss, because nobody knows how to floss.
Speaker 3:Yes, I recommend water picks for patients. It really keeps their gums healthy. A combination of floss and water picking together. Nice, light pink gums looks way better than beefy, red, swollen, purpley looking gums. And patients have crown work and they have that purpley, dark red color that does not enhance the cosmetic look of anything. But if their gums are light, pink and healthy, stippled and look nice, that's beautiful. That's what creates a beautiful smile too. Home care is real important.
Speaker 2:Yes, what advice might you give to someone who's considering a career in cosmetic dentistry?
Speaker 3:Okay, I would say they've got to have some artistic ability. Okay, I would say they've got to have some artistic ability. If you can't visualize something, take it from here to there in your mind before you ever do it. You're going to struggle with it. So that's the number one thing. I think they do need to have some artistic gifting and abilities yeah you can teach techniques and things like that. But if you can't visualize it, there's other areas of dentistry that you could go into.
Speaker 2:It's like a plastic surgeon is an artist.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, very similar, in fact. That's amazing, there's a relationship.
Speaker 2:there they inherit the artistic abilities.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, that's a big part of dentistry.
Speaker 2:Anything you haven't had a chance to share that you want to make sure our listeners know.
Speaker 3:Diane, you give me some ideas. Let me just say, as far as giving somebody advice to go into the dentistry, if they enjoy working with their hands, their minds and they enjoy being around people and they have a good people rapport, they will love dentistry. I enjoy doing dentistry more than almost anything I do and it's because it's a fun field, because it's easy for me to do and if you really enjoy what you're doing then it's not a job anymore. People say why don't you retire? I enjoy doing what I do so much I don't really want to retire. And then my patients tell me we don't want you to retire, don't dare retire. So if they have the abilities, definitely go into it. They will enjoy it. The technology makes it so much more fun to do. Even if it is a learning curve to do, it's worth it to do if you have that ability.
Speaker 2:This was just fantastic. I think it was so great to be able to hear from you and really see this passion. That you've had to be doing something for 45 years and to still love it and to still want to get up every day and do it is just a testament to your abilities and your artistic talents. So thank you, Dr Masho. It was great chatting with you tonight.
Speaker 3:Enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah great, you did a great job.
Speaker 3:Okay, thank you.
Speaker 2:All right, thank you.
Speaker 3:Okay, bye-bye, bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Milton Moore. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpmiltoncom.