Crowns vs Bridges

Dental crowns and bridges from Metropolitan Prosthodontics in Plymouth, MN provide effective solutions to replace missing teeth. In other cases, a crown can avoid extraction by repairing a badly decayed tooth.

If you’ve suffered tooth loss or have a damaged tooth, you can find out here all you need to know about the differences between crowns and bridges and how they both maintain oral functionality and restore smiles. We’ll also be looking at how crowns and bridges are used together and how they work with dental implants.

What Is a Dental Crown?

Crowns – also known as tooth caps – are routinely used to repair extensive cavities or physical damage to a tooth. They cover the whole surface of a tooth to strengthen function and enhance appearance by restoring natural shape, size and color.

A dental crown could be the solution if you have:

  • Extensive tooth decay resulting in cavities too large for a filling.
  • Fractured tooth.
  • Worn-down tooth.

Types of Crowns

Different materials used in the manufacture of dental crowns include:

  • All porcelain.
  • Porcelain fused to metal.
  • Composite resin.
  • Metal alloys such as gold or stainless steel.
  • Zirconia.

The Dental Crown Procedure

If you have a broken or severely decayed tooth, two appointments are usually needed to get a crown. The process includes:

  • Filing down the tooth, under local anesthesia.
  • Taking an impression or scan of your mouth.
  • Sending the impression to a dental lab for fabrication.
  • Placing a temporary crown.
  • Removal of temporary crown and cleaning the tooth.
  • Placement of permanent crown.
  • Checking to see whether adjustments are needed for a better fit.
  • Bonding the crown permanently to the tooth.

Benefits of Crowns

A crown can end the misery of toothache caused by decay or other damage and afford crucial dental protection while strengthening remaining healthy tooth structure.

Other benefits of crowns include:

  • As strong as natural teeth.
  • Preventing damage from penetrating into a tooth nerve.
  • Durability – crowns last up to 15 years.
  • Enhancing appearance of a damaged tooth.
  • Improving bite function.

Crowns also provide a versatile dental treatment. As well as repairing damaged teeth, they’re also used with bridges and dental implants following tooth loss.

Crowns offer a solution to:

  • Secure a dental bridge in place.
  • Replace a single tooth with a dental implant.
  • Protect a tooth after root canal treatment.
  • Strengthen a tooth with a large filling.
  • Enhance appearance of a tarnished filling.
  • Improve appearance of a misshapen tooth.

What Is a Dental Bridge?

A dental bridge is so called because it bridges the gap left by a missing tooth or two, three or four adjacent missing teeth. If you’ve lost a single tooth or two teeth, a bridge can be anchored on crowns placed on remaining teeth either side of the gap. If you’ve lost three or four teeth in a row, the bridge can be supported by dental implants.

Types of Dental Bridges

Several types of dental bridges are available. The most common are traditional bridges and bridges secured by dental implants.

Traditional Bridge

With a conventional bridge, one or two pontics (artificial teeth) are suspended on crowns placed on healthy teeth either side of the gap.

The process of getting a bridge usually takes a couple appointments, and entails:

  • Modifying teeth either side of the gap, under local anesthetic.
  • Placement of abutment crowns on these teeth.
  • Taking impressions or scans of your mouth.
  • Placing a temporary bridge.
  • Sending the impressions to a dental lab.
  • Making the crowns and synthetic tooth or teeth in the dental lab.
  • Fitting your new, permanent bridge.
  • Adjusting the bridge if necessary.

Implant-Supported Bridge

Instead of relying on crowns placed on existing teeth, implant-supported bridges are attached to crowns fitted onto dental implants – small titanium posts inserted in the jaw. One implant is typically placed for each missing tooth, with crown abutments connected to one another to form a section of replacement teeth.

The process of getting an implant-supported bridge can take several months, involving several stages:

  • Reshaping areas of gum ahead of implant placement.
  • Surgery to place the implants, with anesthesia.
  • Allowing time for healing – usually three to six months.
  • Taking impressions or scans to be sent to a dental lab.
  • Installing a temporary bridge.
  • Placing the lab-fabricated permanent bridge.

Benefits of Dental Bridges

Dental bridges end the embarrassment of an unsightly gap in your smile after tooth loss. They also help to prevent gum disease. Without a replacement tooth, food particles and bacteria can accumulate in the space where the tooth used to be. Furthermore, bridges avoid potential problems such as difficulty eating your favorite foods and discomfort if other teeth shift towards the open space. A dental bridge can also resolve speech difficulties after tooth loss, such as a lisp or problems pronouncing certain words. And a fixed dental bridge provides an alternative to wearing a partial denture that needs to be constantly removed for cleaning and soaking and when you brush your teeth.

Advantages of Implant-Supported Bridges

Although implant-supported bridges are more expensive and the process takes longer, they have a couple important advantages over traditional bridges. Implants that support a bridge fuse with bone to become part of your jaw and form a synthetic tooth root. This prevents deterioration of jawbone that occurs in the absence of a root. It also helps preserve natural facial shape. With a conventional bridge, teeth either side of the gap have to be modified to allow for crown placement. Implant bridges require no removal of healthy tooth structure. Implants-supported bridges also offer greater stability, enabling you to smile, eat and speak with confidence.

Crowns and Bridges Without Messy Impressions

Dental crowns and bridges provide solutions to tooth loss or decay or other damage. If you’re struggling with a problem like this, your Plymouth prosthodontist can restore your smile and your oral health. And we can do this without the need for gungy impressions that can cause a distressing gagging sensation. We use advanced 3D scanning technology create a virtual impression of your mouth. Besides more comfortable treatment, digital imaging ensures the most precise fit for your crown or bridge, with no risk of error during the manufacturing process.

Call us at (763) 559-7600 or contact us online if you’d like to know more about the benefits of dental crowns and bridges at our Plymouth prosthodontics center.