# Tips for Scanning Lower Edentulous Arches
## Introduction
[0] Are you having problems scanning lower edentulous arches with all the movable tissues getting in your way? I used to struggle with this as well. And now I think I have a solution to that problem after doing thousands of dentures digitally from intraoral scans. I wanna give you a few tips and tricks to help you along the way.
## Key Tips and Techniques
[21] Number one and probably most important is tissue retraction and mobility. So you could see here I'm scanning and I'm going two thirds up the retromolar pad all the way up to the pterygomandibular raphe. And the tissue is fully retracted and not moving. That is essential. If you have any tissue movement due to poor retraction technique, you're going to get malaligned scans and an inaccurate border.
[50] The next thing is the retromylohyoid fossa is very critical. You have to get all the way down into that fossa with your scanner. I like to break the arch into two halves for the lower. I have captured the patient's left and now I'm going on to the patient's right side. I use a special retractor here, the mod retractors that we designed that really help get the tissues out of the way with full expansion into the retromylohyoid fossa here, allowing you to go all the way up the retromolar pad.
## Conclusion
[77] More importantly, it keeps the tissues in an immovable state so that you're able to capture phenomenal soft tissue dentures with a real mucostatic impression. I can't wait to show you guys some more tips and tricks like how we designed this in Exocad and use all these scans together.
