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Summary:
In this episode, host Chris Schnieders interviews patient Mary Boyd about her journey from a lower partial and snap-on dentures to a fixed SmileLine dental prosthetic solution, detailing why she ultimately chose dental implants for lasting comfort, function, and confidence. Mary compares each step, partial, overdenture, Hybridge, and finally SmileLine, explaining how fixed teeth prosthetics improved chewing and speech and eliminated daily frustrations common with removable options. Guided by SmileLine Design’s cosmetic dentist team, she describes the treatment planning, matching upper and lower arches, and the moment her new smile was delivered. If you’re researching dental replacement, teeth repair, or comprehensive smile restoration in Westphalia, Jefferson City, or the Lake of the Ozarks, this candid conversation highlights the real-world benefits of modern dental implant-supported solutions.
Transcript:
Chris Schnieders: [Music] Welcome to the SmileLine Podcast. The purpose of this podcast is to give real information from doctors and patients about our SmileLine prosthetic and the sequence of appointments. For more information, check out our website or give our office a call. Hope you enjoy today’s episode. All right, guys—on today’s episode we have Mary Boyd, and we just delivered your upper and lower SmileLine. She’s agreed to come onto the podcast and kind of explain her experience and the process. Yeah, so—welcome, Mary.
Mary Boyd: Thanks. Thank you, thank you.
Chris Schnieders: So, Mary’s case—you started with your lower natural teeth and your upper natural teeth and a lower partial, right?
Mary Boyd: Correct. Yes.
Chris Schnieders: Mary’s case is unique in that you experienced a lower partial, a lower denture, an overdenture or snap-on, and then you went to the Hybridge prosthetic, and then you went to the SmileLine prosthetic.
Mary Boyd: Yes—which I’m very happy with.
Chris Schnieders: That’s awesome to hear. But you experienced them all, right?
Mary Boyd: I have. Yeah.
Chris Schnieders: You’re very knowledgeable and experienced in the dental treatments. So, I’d like to start: how would you say the experience has been? You started in the lower partial—can you talk to how that was from a functionality standpoint?
Mary Boyd: Sure. The lower partial was, of course, a little bit uncomfortable. I just wasn’t happy with the way I was able to eat. That’s why I found out about Dr. Sam—I saw some of his commercials on TV, and I thought, “Well, I’m going to give that a shot and see how it goes.” And, of course, the first thing he recommended was the overdenture. I’m very pleased to have tried that, but it still wasn’t exactly what I needed to be comfortable with my smile and being able to eat the way I wanted to. From there, he recommended the SmileLine, and when he put my SmileLine dentures in, I cried—I was so happy. Wonderful.
Chris Schnieders: That’s great. So, you have upper and lower SmileLine right now. To touch on the overdenture—you had your overdenture, I think, in 2022, maybe? Or 2021?
Mary Boyd: 2022.
Chris Schnieders: You were one of the last overdentures that we did at Huntline. We have since stopped making them for patients, and that’s really due to a litany of reasons: increased implant failure, still getting denture sores, more ongoing maintenance—changing out the rings—and at the end of the day it really came down to patients were paying for overdenture implants and they still weren’t meeting your expectations or patients’ expectations.
Mary Boyd: Right. That was one issue I had with the overdenture—it was uncomfortable.
Chris Schnieders: Uncomfortable and not meeting expectations. So now we’ve got you in a lower fixed and an upper fixed. How are you doing?
Mary Boyd: I couldn’t be happier. I was very happy with the upper, and then Dr. Sam said, “Yeah, we’re going to go ahead and get everything in sync,” and I got that delivered today—and I’m very impressed. Happy with it.
Chris Schnieders: Awesome—great to hear. One interesting aspect about your case—and we see this a lot in consults—is patients ask, “Can I just do one arch of teeth? Can I just do the upper, or can I just do the lower?” A lot of that comes down to finances: “I can’t do it all right now.” We do a lot more setups now where we do scans and actually show the patients their tooth setup, and it also helps with diagnosis because then we actually know whether the upper teeth and the lower teeth can match up. Because there are cases where, well, we’re just going to do the lower—so we do the lower to match the upper.
Mary Boyd: And that’s what I had.
Chris Schnieders: That’s what you had, and we had to make the lower kind of a little bit “wonky,” for a better term, to match the upper. Then when we go to do the upper to make an ideal upper, we’re like, “We don’t want to match a wonky lower—then we’d make a wonky upper and a wonky lower.”
Mary Boyd: Right. I had the perfect upper and then, of course, something had to be done with the lower.
Chris Schnieders: So we went ahead and replaced the lower as well, and now we have an upper and a lower that match up perfectly.
Mary Boyd: Yes.
Chris Schnieders: Yeah—your smile does look great.
Mary Boyd: Thank you.
Chris Schnieders: Do you have any advice for patients that are thinking about having all their teeth extracted? It is a scary concept—you can’t come back from it. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Any advice?
Mary Boyd: My advice is—if you’ve had some crowns and stuff and it’s just more and more coming back and getting things fixed a little bit at a time—I think it’s really more economical just to go ahead and get things taken care of. If you can afford it, I would do the upper and lower all at one time, because you don’t have to worry about the matching up and correcting things later—like you said—with the upper and lower being out of sync a little bit. And one surgery instead of different surgeries.
Chris Schnieders: Correct. And how has your overall experience been at Huntline?
Mary Boyd: It’s been wonderful. I couldn’t ask for any better care. I mean, those girls took it easy on you.
Chris Schnieders: They don’t take it easy on me.
Mary Boyd: No—but they’re pretty nice to patients. Heather was awesome today, and everyone’s been very helpful too. They are wonderful.
Chris Schnieders: Anyway—well, Mary, thank you for coming on our podcast and trusting us with your treatment.
Mary Boyd: Thank you so much.
Chris Schnieders: Awesome. We look forward to following your case down the road.
Mary Boyd: Absolutely—and I would recommend Huntline to anyone.
Chris Schnieders: Thank you. Wonderful.
Don’t put off the smile you deserve. Talk to our team about dental implants, advanced teeth repair, and fixed teeth prosthetics for long-lasting smile restoration. If you’re near Westphalia, Jefferson City, or Lake of the Ozarks, MO, book your consultation now and start your dental replacement journey with SmileLine Design.