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A crown is a custom cover made for your tooth. Crowns are used to change the way a tooth looks or to hold the tooth together.In the past, crowns were either gold, or they were metal with a porcelain covering. Today, crowns are typically made of CNC-machined zirconium. Zirconium is a super hard ceramic that is similar to the zirconium diamonds that you may have in your jewelry box. You won't break a zirconium crown, although you may get decay around it. All crowns need to be properly brushed and flossed to ensure many years of function.

 

Q: Do you make crowns while I wait?

A: We do not use those types of crowns. Those crowns are made with a $50K desktop machine. These crowns also rely on a competent programmer to program the parameters of that new crown.

My lab uses $1M+ machines, much more precise than the $50K benchtop devices that some dentists have. My lab also employ technicians that program these machines 24/7. How many programs do you think that other dentist (or the assistant) writes each day? The quality between these two methods of machining a zirconium crown is night and day. I'm not saying that it is impossible to get a good crown out of a benchtop device, but I just havent' seen it. I have told too many patients that their crown fits too loose and will need to be completely redone. With a laboratory-made crown, you will need to wait 10-14 days to receive the real crown, but the end result will be a superior restoration.

 

Bridges: A bridge is basically two crowns with a dummy crown in between them. A bridge is used to fill a space where a tooth was extracted. A bridge is about the same cost as a dental implant.

Dentists have been placing bridges since WW1, so there is a solid track record there. Bridges are a little difficult to take care of, because you cannot floss between the crowns. This makes bridges more susceptible to decay. Because of our implant business at Hudson Bend Dental, we don't make too many bridges, but they are still a viable option in today's world for those patients that cannot have an implant placed.