Several days ago one of our patients mentioned to me that he didn’t know we had the technology to create his crown in one visit. He was delighted to find out that it would only take an hour and he would not have to come back to get his “permanent” crown in a few weeks or wear a temporary.

Cerec is a Cad Cam Technology that allows us to do all sorts of things we were unable to do a few years ago. The biggest advantage to this technology is that is saves you time and invariably money! Since everything is done at one visit, you wont have to take of work again for a second appointment and never a temporary to worry about coming out.

There are other advantages as well. If you have ever had a traditional crown done by the dentist before you probably remember the impressions and moulds that often times are unpleasant. With Cerec we just take a few pictures and there is no need for impressions. Cerec restorations are made of full ceramic. We use a very strong and beautiful ceramic that makes teeth look like teeth again. No more ugly mercury or silver amalgam fillings.

Below is a quick video of Dr. Hufanda and myself talking about Cerec.

Have you ever looked at someones smile and immediately noticed that they had dark rings or black around the necks of the teeth?  Maybe you have noticed this on yourself around older dental work.  Many people are under the impression that those dark rings are cavities or or some other problem, but many times it is nothing other than metal.  Metal?  Yes.

In the past few decades, alloys that have platinum, gold, nickel, and other metals in them have been used as substructures for dental work.  Dental labs build the foundation of metal and then bake tooth colored porcelain on top of them.  These restorations are then put on the teeth in the form of “crowns” or “bridges”.  Unfortunately in the early days, these dental restorations didn’t really look very natural and many times the metal was actually designed to show around the necks of the teeth.  Just like in the picture below…

Today, techniques are vastly improved. And, even though we sometimes use alloys under crowns and bridges, the technicians at the laboratories have become masters at masking it out. However, the most natural looking dental crowns and bridges are made from all porcelain without metal. Below is an example of a 3 unit all porcelain bridge, without metal, that we put in today.

A bridge is a dental restoration that replaces a missing tooth by using teeth on either side of the space for support. It is kind of like 3 crowns in a row and the middle crown is sitting on the gum tissue. The most challenging part of this procedure is to make it look like the “fake” tooth is coming out of the gums naturally. Can you guess which tooth is the one that is fake?