Dear Dr. Phan,

I hope that you do not regret offering to advise us online!! I do not mean to take advantage of you, but I am very, very glad to have your input. Thanks very much for your generosity!

My visit with the prosthodontist today went well enough...I have decide to delay any decision to have my teeth crowned. Your advice about avoiding too firm an attatchment coincided with that of a cousin who is a retired dentist, with whom I conferred this morning. My prosthodontist was ok with this decision.

We will continue to work with fine-tuning this appliance with re-lining material, and when we feel that we have it finalized, he will re-bake it for permanence. (This is my definitive obturator, made on a metal framework.)

I will undoubtedly have more questions for you, but for now, I am feeling more secure in my decision about the crowns, thanks to your advice. The crowns will always be an option down the line.

As for reconstruction, my current surgical recovery has been so perfect that I hesitate to interfere with that. Also, the surgery is quite drastic, in my opinion, with no guarantee of success, and I simply can not consider that experience at this time.