Severely decayed teeth can weaken your overall dental structure. In addition to this, your teeth may suffer from chips, cracks and breakage. At Lygon Family Dental, we aim to save all teeth and prevent extraction. Even severely affected teeth can be saved with a crown.
A crown is one of the best ways of saving teeth and strengthens them at the same time as it acts to effectively secure and protect the underlying tooth, being made of a highly durable ceramic or a combination of ceramic and metal alloys.
Preparation of the tooth involves removal of decay, replacing any missing tooth structure with new high strength filling material and then reducing the whole crown of tooth down in size by 1-2mm in all aspects to allow space for the crown or ‘cap’ to fit over the tooth.
A ceramic crown will be created to perfectly complement your teeth’s existing appearance and structure. This crown is then bonded to your underlying tooth and made secure using strong, durable cement. A temporary crown is made at the preparatory visit to protect the underlying tooth while the new ceramic crown is made.
Replacing the outer surface of the teeth, your crown restores your tooth to a completely natural look with greatly improved strength and quality. Bridges are used to replace one or more missing teeth. A bridge replaces the missing tooth with an artificial one without the need for removable dentures. For the implementation of a bridge, a crown is also used as a supporting feature, on the teeth either side of the area of tooth loss.
This acts to stabilise and anchor the bridge in place, which is secured across the area and subsequently ‘bridging’ the gap. Therefore the adjacent teeth have to be shaved down in size to allow the bridge to fit onto them. The bridge is also bonded in with strong, durable cement.
