Advantages of CEREC Compared with Traditional Crowns

If you know you are likely to need a crown in the near future then you may have braced yourself for several visits to Parrock Street to complete the treatment. A conventional crown requires your tooth to be ground down in preparation for the crown, before an impression is taken that is sent to the dental laboratory. The impression is cast up in dental plaster by the dental lab, and is used to fabricate the crown. This all takes time, and a typical crown usually takes two weeks or even longer to be made.

This is just one reason that makes CEREC crowns seem so attractive, and they can be used in conjunction with dental implants in Kent. Your tooth can be prepared and the crown made and fitted in just one dental visit. There is no need to return at a later date for fitting and adjustments, as the crown is precision made using computer aided design so it fits tightly over your remaining tooth structure.

The materials used for CEREC crowns are very lifelike. The crown is milled from a single block of ceramic material that comes in a huge variety of colours and translucencies. However it does need to be properly finished, so dentist in Kent must be quite artistically oriented in order to get the very best from the material. They need to stain and characterise the crown so it looks as lifelike as possible. This is one of the reasons why CEREC crowns are not used for every single case.

Traditional Crowns for Front Teeth

CEREC crowns can give wonderful results for teeth that are not right in the smile line, but may not be quite so good for crowning teeth that are at the front of the mouth. In this case you may be better off waiting to have your crown constructed at the dental laboratory. The reason for this is that a properly equipped dental laboratory has a huge range of porcelains to choose from when custom making your crown. If you take a closer look at your natural teeth you’ll see they are made up of many different shades, and that some areas are more translucent than others. A skilled ceramist can incorporate many different shades and translucencies into your crown, giving it a natural vibrancy that is very difficult to achieve through milling the crown from a single block of material.

It is not so much as case of one method being better than the other, but is more about choosing the right system for your needs. Both CEREC and traditional crowns have their place in the modern dental surgery, and both can be equally as good at restoring your teeth to full function.

If you’d like to know more about CEREC crowns, then why not schedule a consultation with Dr Rik Trivedi? Just give us a call on 01474 537191, or you can email us on infor@parrockstreetdental.co.uk