A crown rebuilds a tooth that's been weakened by a crack, a large filling, or a root canal. A bridge replaces a missing tooth by anchoring to its neighbours. Both should look like teeth, and last.
Many crowns can now be done in a single visit. Using CEREC CAD/CAM technology, Dr. Khan scans the prepared tooth, designs the crown on screen, and mills it from a block of ceramic while you wait, so you leave with the final crown and no temporary. For front teeth where we want hand-layered porcelain from a ceramist, it takes two visits about two weeks apart, with a temporary in between.
For front teeth we use layered or high-translucency ceramics that pass light the way enamel does. For back teeth we favor monolithic zirconia, which is extremely strong and still tooth-colored. Metal-based crowns still have a place in some situations, but we rarely need them. Every crown is made by a ceramist from a precise scan, and shade is matched in natural light.
A bridge replaces one or more missing teeth with false teeth joined to crowns on the teeth either side. It's fixed, so it doesn't come out, and it can be the right choice when the neighbouring teeth already need crowns. The downside is that healthy neighbours must be shaped to carry it. For a single missing tooth with healthy neighbours, a dental implant often preserves more of your own tooth structure, and we'll walk you through the trade-offs.
Ten to fifteen years is typical, and well-made ceramic crowns often go well beyond that. Good hygiene around the edge of the crown and a night guard if you grind are the two biggest factors.
It shouldn't. Modern ceramics are matched to your other teeth in shade and translucency, and the junction with the gum is designed to be invisible. Front-tooth crowns are checked in natural light before they're cemented.
The tooth is numbed for the preparation and the visit is comfortable. Some sensitivity with the temporary is normal and goes away once the final crown is on.
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