What is the difference between stabilizing a case and going to complete dentistry?
These are two of the three honest choices you give a patient, and you should be clear about both. Stabilizing means you slow things down and buy time. The nice thing about modern technology is we can hold people in a stable state far longer than we used to. Even with severe perio you have lasers, you have antibiotics, you have a real understanding of the disease. So stabilizing is legitimate. Nothing wrong with it. Complete dentistry is the opposite end. You focus on the whole mouth and look at the patient over a lifetime instead of one tooth at a time. And there is always the third choice, which is to do nothing, and some patients will pick that. Your job is not to force the complete path. It is to show all three clearly so the patient makes a decision they actually own.
If the answers you are finding here resonate with you, my team and I work with a small group of clients each year. The next step is a complimentary Discovery Consultation and Practice Review with Dr. McAnally.