Crowns

A crown is a full coverage restoration that is permanently cemented to your tooth. In order to place a crown over your tooth, we must conservatively reduce the tooth in all directions to provide room for the crown. There are numerous reasons a tooth may need a crown. A few of the more common reasons include broken, fractured, or traumatized teeth, large failing mercury fillings, large decayed teeth, root canal treated teeth, and worn or ground teeth. Cosmetic

Bridges

A bridge is a tooth replacement option when deciding how to deal with a missing tooth or teeth. We strongly recommend you consider placing a dental implant where your missing tooth was. Please see the dental implant section. You must understand the consequences of not replacing your missing teeth. Teeth may shift and affect how you chew or cause periodontal disease. It is very important for you to replace these missing teeth. Tooth loss can affect the way you eat, speak, and the alignment of other teeth in your mouth.

The bridge process is as follows. We start by adequately numbing your teeth. All decay, fractures, and left over filling materials are removed. We then place new white filling material in the tooth to restore the tooth to ideal form and contours. This is called a build-up. We then will reduce the teeth 360 degrees to provide enough room for the crown. Once the tooth reduction is complete, we take a final impression of the prepared tooth. This impression is used by the laboratory to fabricate your final bridge. After the impression, we will construct you a temporary white acrylic bridge that is temporarily cemented over your tooth. You will wear your temporary bridge for 2-4 weeks while your permanent crown is fabricated by the laboratory. At your delivery appointment, we will remove the temporary bridge, clean the tooth, and try in your permanent bridge. We will then take an x-ray to verify it fits perfectly. Once the fit is confirmed, we will permanently cement the new bridge on your tooth. The dental assistant will then provide you with post op instructions and home care protocol.