By taking care of dental problems immediately, you minimize the risk of future problems.
This is the art of replacing missing natural teeth with artificial teeth, which are just as functional and esthetical as your natural teeth. With recent developments in dentistry, a number of alternatives are available to replace missing teeth, ranging from traditional dentures to crowns and bridges and even dental implants. It is essential to restore lost teeth as early as possible with something that closely resembles your teeth.
Dental Crowns
A crown restores the damaged tooth and mimics the size, shape and color of the original tooth.
They are indicated for fractured and worn out teeth; to protect teeth that have been filled by root canal treatment; to provide extra support for bridges; and to cover poorly shaped or discolored teeth.
They on an average last for five to eight years, but can even last much longer if proper oral hygiene is maintained
The tooth to be crowned is prepared (i.e. reduction of the tooth size) followed by an impression of the tooth, being obtained. This reduction of the tooth is required to build room for the crown to be fixed. The impression taken is then sent to a laboratory where expert technicians will fabricate the crown. In the meanwhile, a temporary crown is made and fixed on top of the reduced tooth.
Crowns can be made of porcelain, metal or newer restorative materials like metal-free ceramics.
Types of dental crowns
All Resin – These are normally used for temporary coverage. However they do not last long like other types of crowns because they are not very fracture resistant.
All Metal – This includes gold alloy and other base metal alloys. Metal crowns are the toughest. They rarely break or chip and can resist daily wear and tear. The only disadvantage is that they look like metal and not a natural tooth.
Ceramic fused to Metal – They merge the strength of the metal along with the esthetics of porcelain. Although the porcelain is somewhat more prone to chipping, they are still tough. They are the most commonly used crowns now.
All Ceramic – These crowns are best esthetically and have the advantage of being ‘metal free’. This is a big advantage even for subsequent scan in the face and head region since it does not produce ‘scatter’ during CT scans.
- Dental Bridges
A dental bridge restores missing teeth by "bridging" the space between two existing teeth. The crowns are fixed over the remaining teeth to hold the false tooth in place.
When teeth are only on one side of the space, cantilever bridges can be given. Cantilever bridge consists of two or more side-by-side crowns and only one is fixed over the prepared natural teeth.
To design a bridge, the reshaping of the abutment tooth or teeth is done to make space for the crowns. Then the mold of the teeth is made. This mold is then sent to a laboratory, where the crowns and bridge are made.
They prevent the nearby teeth from moving or shifting in the oral cavity and also stabilize the bite of a patient with missing one or more teeth.
Unlike partial dentures, bridgesare fixed; patients need not remove them. The lost tooth is replaced with an artificial one attached between two crowns, and is permanently cemented onto the adjacent teeth.
- Dental Implants
Dental Implants are artificial substitutes for natural tooth-roots. When teeth are lost, implants are used to anchor artificial teeth to the underlying jawbone and hence closely mimic the natural dentition. They make it possible for people who cannot or will not wear a conventional denture to have very firm, stable and attractive teeth. It is usually made of titanium which is a biocompatible material i.e. our body accepts the metal comfortably and does not reject it. Titanium has a well-documented track record of more than 40 years. Implants can replace one or more or all teeth. It is an alternative to conventional techniques such as bridges to replace missing teeth.
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