Restorative Crowns
A crown is like a special sleeve made of metal or ceramics, or both, that goes over a damaged or weak tooth. Your dentist will match it up to the shape - and, in the case of porcelain crowns, colour - of your other teeth so it will look natural. The crown should last for 10-15 years, depending on the health of the tooth underneath and how well you look after them.
Here at Shine Dental, we offer a range of different crowns. Most of the crowns we offer are now free of metal. This gives a much more aesthetic appearance making crowns look more natural and also eliminates the possibility of an allergic reaction to metal. Unless gold is requested, the alloys contain a mixture of metals and you can develop mild gingival inflammation. This is characterised by "angry" looking gums.
Under certain lighting, the metal base can sometimes be seen.
TYPES OF CERAMICS TO CONSIDER
PORCELAIN FUSED TO GOLD
The porcelain fused to gold crown is a type of ceramo-metallic crown. The ceramic crown is supported by a gold substructure. Through electroplating, the metal is bonded to the surface of the ground tooth in a way that it provides perfect fit, leaving no space between the tooth and the crown. Creating a perfect fit is essential to prevent later dental decay. Another advantage of this procedure is that the gold substructure is extremely thin, the porcelain cover is thicker which creates and excellent aesthetic effect. The crown is made of 98.8% pure gold that contains no additive. Using gold in this case is also beneficial because its colour compensates for the greyish shade of the porcelain, so the final colour of the replacement is like or at least more similar to the colour of a natural tooth.
ADVANTAGES OF PORCELAIN FUSED TO GOLD CROWNS
- Perfect fit
- excellent aesthetic result
- no allergic reaction
- durability
The damaged tooth is prepared. A crown with a metal base and porcelain coating is made. The crown is fixed in place.
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PROCERA
In the past, crowns and bridges were traditionally made of porcelain fused to metal. Now thanks to the development of modern "all ceramics", which are incredibly strong and natural looking, there really is no need to use porcelain bonded to metal.
And in the world of all-ceramics, no-one can match the aesthetics, quality and proven track-record of PROCERA!
Procera crowns are completely tissue-friendly. Your crown, integrates beautifully with its surroundings, encouraging gum to grow back up to the tooth, as it would naturally. And because they are bio-compatible, there are no allergic reactions, no sensitivity to temperature and no impact on taste. They are precision engineered in state of the art production facilities. And they fit so well you will forget they are there. Laboratories use a unique system to subtly match your real tooth's colour and translucency so they're almost impossible to tell apart from your real teeth. You yourself can decide on the colour, texture, shape and even the tooth markings to suite your needs. Procera is the most current material to the word of dentistry and is proving to be a breakthrough in dental technology.
Dental patients of today are looking for more than just a healthy and functional restorative solution. Aesthetics is playing an increasingly important role in their choice of dental restorations. As all ceramics are both bio-compatible and aesthetic these materials are rapidly growing in popularity.
Emax allows us to offer patients exceptionally beautiful restorations which also demonstrate mechanical strength. Since the crown is made entirely out of ceramic, it can have the same translucency as natural teeth which will give the crown a more natural appearance.
ADVANTAGES OF EMAX CROWNS
- This crown is considered to be the best match with your own natural teeth. The transparent colour and lifelike shape ensures that it is unlikely to be noticed amongst your own natural teeth
- There is no metal alloy base with thus crown which means no unsightly looking grey line around the gum line
- They are strong, long lasting and unlikely to crack or fracture compared to many other types of crowns
DIS-ADVANTAGES OF EMAX CROWNS
- The EMAX crown isn't as strong as the Procera crown and is not suitable for use on upper posterior teeth
- They may not be suitable for everyone so check with your dentist to see if this crown is right for you
This lady had four lower crowns as she was unhappy with the dark grey lining that appeared under each tooth. She had four new porcelain bonded to metal crowns and she was delighted with the final results.
This lady had all six crowns at the front replaced as she was very unhappy with how they looked, particularly the black line that has appeared above them. She had them all replaced with Procera crowns, these crowns are all ceramic and have no metal in them at all. They are the most aesthetically pleasing and also the strongest.
This lady also had a smile make over and had the four anterior teeth crowned. Three were crowned and one was a veneer. She also had whitening treatment before beginning crown preparations to make the overall look more aesthetically pleasing. All of her crowns and her veneer were E-Max.
