Tooth crowns and bridges

Tooth decay, grinding your teeth, an improper bite, age and fillings can all be contributing factors in the wearing down, cracking or breakage of your teeth. Tooth crowns or cappings cover the entire visible surface of your affected tooth and add strength, durability and tooth stability.

Bridges are given when you have some tooth/teeth missing and the surrounding teeth can be used for support. In such cases, the support is taken from the neighbouring teeth to give you false tooth/teeth in form of ‘dental bridge’ over missing teeth area.

The procedure of Crown & Bridges

Dr Nidhi Gupta will carry out the necessary X ray and clinical exam to determine whether the existing tooth structure is suitable for capping procedure. Once it is determined that capping and or bridging can be done then the type of crown and bridges will be discussed with you. All tooth conditions are not suitable for all types of crowns& bridges. Sometimes additional procedures may be needed to modify the available tooth structure to increase the stability and longevity of future crown & bridge. (See crown lengthening procedure)

Once the treatment is decided with your consent, the tooth/teeth will be anaesthetised after applying numbing gels. The teeth are given appropriate shapes (also called tooth preparation) with help of dental rotor drills. The procedure is absolutely painless. After the preparation of tooth structure, impressions are made with special gel like materials. These are then sent to the dental laboratory for the lab work of crown & bridge preparation. You will typically leave the office with a temporary crown/ bridge to wear while the permanent ones are being made – this takes about 5-6 days.

As a rule, Dr Nidhi always does a trial fitting of the partially made crown/bridge so that the future product has good stability. This usually occurs 2 days after the tooth preparation visit. The permanent crown/ bridge will come in next 2-3 days. The permanent crown/bridge is then cemented onto your tooth. Before you leave the dental office, we make sure that the permanent crown/bridge is natural and you feel absolutely comfortable.

Typically 3 visits are needed for permanent crown and bridge work and these are spread over 5-6 days. Our labs also provide us express service and provide permanent dental crowns in 48 hours. A prior request for express services is needed from the patients.

Often, a final filling is needed for restoration of your supporting teeth before a crown/bridge can be placed. Due to loss of tooth structure due to decay, this final filling become very essential before cementing crowns.