Crowns and Bridges:
What is dental crown?
Dental crowns are makeovers that protect damaged,cracked or broken down teeth. A crown strengthens your existing, damaged tooth so as to preserve its functionality. Dental crowns are also commonly known as caps (because a crown sits over your existing tooth, covering the entire outer surface).
What Types of Crowns Are Available?
Permanent crowns can be made from all metal, porcelain-fused-to-metal, all resin, or all ceramic.
- ♦ Metals used in crowns include gold alloy or a base-metal alloy (for example, nickel or chromium). The metallic color is the main drawback and the material is less gum friendly. Metal crowns are a good choice for out-of-sight molars.
- ♦ Porcelain-fused-to-metal dental crowns can be colour matched to your adjacent teeth (unlike the metallic crowns). However, sometimes the metal underlying the crown’s porcelain can show through as a dark line, especially at the gum line and even more so if your gums recede.These crowns can be a good choice for front or back teeth.
- ♦ All-ceramic or all-porcelain dental crowns provide the best natural colour and are most your gums recede. aesthetic match than any other crown type, are most aesthetic, most gum friendly, and may be more suitable for people with metal allergies. Most commonly given metal free crowns include Procera, Lava, Cercon and Empress.
- ♦ Zirconia Crowns is rapidly becoming the material of choice for dental crowns. Its strength and durability have been proved. Additionally it is fully biocompatible so there are no risks of allergic reactions. It is increasingly being used in general surgery as well as in dentistry. More importantly, it has a translucency that is very similar to a natural tooth. This means that Zirconium will produce the best aesthetic effect, which is important if your new crowns are to be at the front.
What is a dental bridge?
A dental bridge is a false tooth or teeth, known as a pontic, which is fused between two porcelain crowns to fill in the area left by a missing tooth or teeth. The two crowns holding it in place that are attached onto your teeth on each side of the false tooth. This is known as a fixed bridge. This used to replace one or more missing teeth. procedure is Fixed bridges cannot be taken out of your mouth as you might do with removable partial dentures. Bridges can reduce your risk of gum disease, help correct some bite issues and even improve your speech. Bridges require your commitment to serious oral hygiene, but will last as many ten years or more.