Crowns & Bridges

What are crowns and bridges? Are they necessary?

Losing or chipping a tooth can be a traumatic experience – especially if the empty space it leaves is visible when you smile.

A crown is used to cover a tooth to restore it to its normal shape and size, strengthening functionality and improving its appearance. Crowns can be used to seal cracked teeth, to support a large filling when there is not enough of the tooth remaining, to protect weak teeth from fracturing, to restore fractured teeth, or to cover badly shaped or discoloured teeth. A crown could be necessary after at root canal procedure.

A bridge is a way of replacing a missing tooth that uses the teeth on either side of the lost one as anchors to hold the replacement tooth in place. If left unfilled, this space can cause the surrounding teeth to drift out of position and can cause teeth and gums to become more susceptible to tooth decay and gum disease that can cause further tooth loss.

Gold alloy, porcelain, or porcelain fused to metal are three typical choices of material for crowns and bridges.

Traditionally, crown and bridge restoration requires at least 2 appointments. The first appointment is for shaping the tooth and taking a mold inside the patient's mouth. Patient leaves with a temporary crown or bridge. The mold is then sent out to a lab where the crown is made within a week or two. During the second appointment the temporary crown or bridge will be removed, and the lab-made final prosthesis will be tried in and cemented.

Oval Dental Centre has now incorporated the newest revolutionary technology from Germany --CEREC®. Chairside Economical Restorations of Esthetic Ceramic or CEREC® for short is a new state-of-the-art method of reconstructing tooth restorations. CEREC® uses computer-assisted design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) to offer single-day restorations for patients. What does that mean? Basically, it’s a sophisticated system of designing and making high-quality, metal-free dental restorations. It allows the prepared tooth to be scanned, and the crown or bridge being designed and milled right in front of you in a single visit!

CEREC makes a dental prosthesis possible in just a single visit.

1. After the consultation, a camera captures the area to be treated.

2. The dental prosthesis is then created as a 3D model on the computer.

3. Afterwards, the restoration created on the computer is subsequently milled from a ceramic block.

4. Just a little while later, the finished ceramic restoration is inserted in the mouth.

No unpleasant impression material

No follow-up appointment

No bothersome temporary prosthesis

Only one visit

Your advantages with CEREC:

Time-saving treatment in one visit. With CEREC you can have high esthetic restorations made by your dentist in a single visit, without follow up appointment.
Comfortable intraoral scan without unpleasant impression material. Say goodbye to biting on impression material for several minutes and having a numb mouth and jaw ache. Your dentist now has a scanner that can capture your full dentition in seconds and then transfer the data to the computer.
Your final restoration without temporary prosthesis. Temporary restorations are exactly what the name suggests: temporary. They are not strong and may break or fall off from the tooth. With CEREC the final restoration is designed, manufactured and placed in your mouth directly without any temporary compromises needed.
Long-term stability more than just a theory: With CEREC you can rely on quality that has been proven millions of times. Your smile will remain the same for many years!