Having all of your teeth isn’t just good for cosmetic purposes. Just having a badly damaged or missing tooth can not only affect your smile, but it can facilitate gum disease and change the shape of your face among other things. Like bricks on a wall, every tooth plays an important part in daily tasks such as eating and speaking.
If you’re missing teeth, your neighboring teeth will start to shift inward due to no support. Your speech can be affected because of missing teeth. Your jaw could shift because of the missing teeth and could cause pain to occur in your jaw (TMJ).
One possible way to prevent this from happening is to have some crowns & bridges inserted.
Badly Damaged Teeth?
If your teeth are badly damaged, you may want to consider getting a crown. Also called a cap, a crown is used to cover a badly damaged tooth and protect it from further damage. Crowns are custom made and take more than a day to be manufactured. We make an impression of your teeth and send you home with a temporary crown while the permanent crown is made.
Crowns are made of metal, porcelain, or both.
- Gold Crowns are easier to be fitted and are durable. They are not aesthetically pleasing to many due to their contrast in color with natural teeth. Because of this reason, metal crowns are mainly used to cover the back teeth.
- Porcelain Crowns are comparable to natural teeth in color. No one will be able to tell the difference between a porcelain crown and your natural teeth. The drawback is that porcelain crowns are not as durable as metal crowns and they are not as easy to be fitted.
- Metal and Porcelain Crowns give you the best of both worlds. With this type of crown, porcelain is fused around the metal structure to give you more durability than a pure porcelain crown while being more natural looking than a gold crown.
The cost of a crown ranges from $1200 – $1600 depending on the type of crown. All porcelain crowns are the most expensive. You can have a crown in two visits.
Missing Teeth?
You may want to consider getting a bridge. A bridge is a partial denture that is fused to two crowns to cover your missing teeth. The partial denture sits on top of your gums and acts as a “bridge” over the missing teeth hence the name. If left untreated, your other teeth will shift because there are no other teeth to hold them in place.
Bridges are made of gold, porcelain, or a combination of porcelain and metal. Bridges fall into the following types:
- Traditional Bridge – A bridge which is fused to two adjacent crowns
- Cantilever Bridge – A bridge which is fused to only one adjacent crown
Replacing teeth with crowns and bridges requires the filing down of teeth. If your adjacent teeth on both sides of the missing teeth are healthy, you may want to consider a conventional dental implant or a mini dental implant.
Are crowns and bridges the right choice for you?
Come in today for a consultation. Our Atlanta dentists will give you an exam, review and discuss the x-rays taken of your teeth, diagnose your condition, and give you dental treatment options from the most economical to the best and everywhere in between.
Lost a tooth? Don’t fret; though it may be uncomfortable and look unappealing for now, cosmetic dentistry has several options for tooth replacement like bridges, partial dentures or dental implants. For many dental patients, partial dentures aren’t a good choice due to their instability. You may have also heard of dental implants, which can be a wonderful solution for restoring lost teeth. How do dentures and implants compare to dental bridges? At Creative Dentistry & Medspa, we offer all three and believe dental bridges are still a viable, economical and visually-appealing option for tooth replacement.
Traditionally, dental bridges require the adjacent teeth to be crowned so that fixing the permanent bridge does not damage the surface of the existing teeth. Crowning the remaining teeth next to the bridge ensures that the bridge and prosthetic teeth stay in place for life, and the existing teeth stay healthy and secure.
Bridges vs. Dentures
If you’re missing just one tooth, a dental bridge will better suit your needs than getting a set of partial dentures. Especially if the remaining teeth are relatively healthy, aside from the missing tooth, there is little need for dentures. A fixed dental bridge will function better. Dentures can be fairly inconvenient when it comes to eating, speaking and oral care. In most cases, if a partial denture can be avoided, choosing an alternative option, like a dental bridge or implant, will usually suit the patient’s dental and lifestyle needs better.
Bridges vs. Implants
Dental implants are the gold standard of tooth replacement, but it is not the right option for every patient. Sometimes a patient isn’t the best candidate for dental implants. Depending on how long the tooth has been missing, the facial bones may have receded too much for implantation surgery to be possible without an additional bone graft surgery.
Not all patients are candidates for bone graft surgery, making a dental bridge the next best option. Luckily for these patients, bridges are much more affordable than dental implants, which rely on some of the latest technology and materials and are still one of the most expensive treatment options on the market today.
Is a Dental Bridge Right for You?
If you have a missing tooth that is affecting your appearance, a dental bridge can be an excellent choice. It is less expensive than a dental implant and more convenient than a partial denture. Before you decide which tooth replacement option is right for you, schedule a consultation with our dentist at Creative Dentistry & Medspa. We can explore all your tooth replacement options and discuss the different prices and procedures to help you determine which is best for your needs and budget. Contact our office in Sandy Springs, GA, to schedule your consultation with our cosmetic and restorative dentist.