Dental Crown
A dental crown or dental cap is a custom made restoration that covers a tooth with sustained significant loss of structure. They are analogical to being a thimble capped over your finger. Dental crowns are used to restore teeth to a certain shape and size. They provide strength and improves the appearance of the tooth.
Dental Bridge
A dental bridge is one method to fill a gap created by a missing tooth (or teeth). Dental bridge or pontic is a custom-made false tooth or teeth, that is permanently placed between two healthy teeth, filling in the area left by a missing tooth or teeth. The bridge is held in place by crowns placed on the healthy teeth on each side of space to be filled.
Benefits of Dental Crowns & Bridges
- Protects severely damaged tooth or tooth weakened by decay, fracture, large fillings or root canal therapy from fracturing. Teeth with large fillings tend to “flex more” forcing the tooth apart possibily causing stress fractures
- Holds together cracked or weaken teeth and seal the tooth from decay
- Covers discolored and irregularities in teeth in improving cosmetic appearance
- Helps preserve the natural function and position of the teeth
- Restores tooth with large decay, cavities or filings
- Restores and maintains natural bite
- Fixed prosthetics on dental implant posts
- Restore your smile
- Distributes the forces in your bite properly by replacing missing teeth
- Prevents remaining teeth from drifting out of position
- Helps preserve the natural function and position of the teeth
Types of Dental Crowns & Bridge Materials
There are three basic types of materials for dental crowns and bridges:
Porcelain fused to metal (PFM)
All porcelain dental crowns
All metal dental crowns (Gold)
Porcelain fused to metal (PFM) dental crowns and all porcelain crowns are tooth colored crowns. PFM dental crowns offer the best combination of aesthetics and durability. PFM dental crowns are usually used to restore back teeth where the forces of chewing and grinding are strongest. All porcelain crowns are the most aesthetic and are used primarily used for front teeth where the need for strength is not as critical. Gold dental crowns are the most durable and offer the most precise fit. Gold dental crowns does not chip.
The all-ceramic porcelain crowns used at Bangkok International Dental Center include the IPS Empress Esthetics crowns from Ivoclar Vivadent, Procera NobelEsthetics from Nobel Biocare and Cercon Smart Ceramics from DENTSPLY.