When a smile changes everything: Federica's story

Federica was 21 years old and studying at college when she finally had enough. 

For years, she hid a smile she felt she couldn't show the world. Her dental journey began at an early age, shaped by orthodontic work, specialized devices and careful planning. Then a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis stopped everything in its tracks. Her teeth couldn't be moved. The treatment that was supposed to fix things had to be abandoned, and Federica was left with a result that made her deeply unhappy. 

"I felt a little discouraged, obviously, because my teeth were making me uncomfortable," she recalls. "I avoided laughing in photos, or laughing at all, or smiling in front of people. I often raised my hand to my mouth. It made me sad." 

She came to Dr. Carlo Arcara's family practice in Termini Imerese, near Palermo, Italy, not expecting much. She arrived, as Dr. Arcara remembers it, crying. 

A complex case, carefully considered 

Dr. Arcara is a dentist who thinks in protocols. He completed his degree at the University of Milan in 2010, spent four years pursuing a Ph.D. in periodontics and then turned his focus toward prosthetic procedures and adhesive dentistry. Today, he works alongside his father and brother in a family practice that has been treating patients across generations. 

He learned something early from his father, a principle he carries into every working day: "Every day my father says you need to go to bed and sleep well without any noise, any thinking, nothing. So every day I can wake up and do the best with my passion, with the most high-quality dentistry." 

Federica's case was the kind that demands that standard. "It was a complex case that started a lot of years ago with orthodontic treatment," Dr. Arcara explains. A single central incisor had become ankylosed — fused to the bone, impossible to reposition. The aesthetics were compromised in a way that had followed Federica well into adulthood. 

He studied the case carefully. Photographs. Videos. Time spent understanding not just the clinical picture, but the person in front of him. "Aesthetics is something really personal," he says. "It's not easy to try to understand the personality of the patient that you have in front of you." 

His proposal was minimally invasive ceramic veneers. "She immediately accepted." 

Seeing it before it happened

What made Federica's experience different wasn't just the final result. It was the moment she first saw what was possible, even before any permanent work had been done. 

Dr. Arcara's process includes a mock-up phase, where a temporary resin application gives the patient a preview of the final restoration. He used 3M™ Protemp™ 4, a material he describes as fast, simple to clean and capable of delivering accurate pre-visualization. The mock-up gave Federica the chance to go home and live with her potential future smile. She could look in the mirror. She could show her family. 

"I was already happy at the beginning when I only had the temporary ones," Federica says. "So when there was the final result, I was really very satisfied." 

The day everything changed

When the permanent ceramic veneers were cemented, Dr. Arcara followed a meticulous protocol. Cementation is a process he takes seriously to ensure the aesthetic restorations hold long term. He used 3M™ Scotchbond™ Universal Plus Adhesive, a product he trusts across a range of ceramic materials including zirconium and lithium silicate. For the cementation itself, he chose 3M™ Rely X™ Universal Resin Cement, specifically because it gave him time to check, clean and ensure everything was exactly right before the material set. 

"In every smile we build, we need a partner," he says. "One of the most important partners is the product I use. Solventum helps me a lot because I need to use products that I am confident are safe and are simple." 

Federica describes the discomfort as minimal and says the process felt worth every moment. When it was done, and she saw her new smile for the first time, "I started crying because for the first time, finally, after many years, I saw myself as beautiful. I saw a smile that satisfied me. And that was the best thing, feeling confident." 

More than a restoration

In the weeks that followed, Federica had to get used to something she hadn't experienced in a long time: smiling freely. At first, she'd catch herself instinctively raising her hand to cover her mouth, the habit she’d had for years. Then she'd stop herself. 

"There's no need," she thought. And there wasn't. 

"I regained my self-confidence, smiling and laughing with others, without hiding myself," she says. "I think that a smile is an important part of a person. When you smile freely, I think you convey what you have inside." 

She's also forgotten, in the best possible way, that the veneers are there at all. "I've forgotten that I have veneers, so I feel them as if they were my own teeth. I feel perfectly comfortable eating, biting into anything." 

Dr. Arcara sees outcomes like this as a measure of everything he does. Not just the clinical precision, though that matters deeply. But the person who walks out of his practice being able to show the world her smile.