Crowns and Bridges Q & A

A dental crown is a cap that the dentist places over your tooth in order to:

• Protect a damaged or fractured tooth
• Hide a discolored tooth
• Cover a tooth with too much dental work
• Attach a bridge

Our local dental lab will design the crown so that it fits in seamlessly with your existing teeth, in shape, color, and function.

If you’re missing one or more teeth, a bridge fills the gap with prosthetic teeth. A dental bridge is fixed to your existing teeth, and you can’t remove it. Many patients opt for a bridge instead of dentures because of this last fact — the care for a bridge is the same as your natural teeth, simplifying your at-home dental routine.

The other reason many patients choose a bridge is for the stability it offers. The dentists use your existing teeth as anchors, holding your bridge firmly in place.

Like the crowns, the replacement teeth that come with the bridge are custom-made to fit in with your surrounding natural teeth, and only you will know the difference.

After Dr. Polwarth takes impressions of your teeth and reviews your shading options with you, the lab goes to work. Using state-of-art equipment, the technicians custom manufacture your crown and bridge, using materials that create life-like replacements, right down to the transparency of the tooth.

The materials that the technicians use are designed to stand up to the normal everyday forces your natural teeth encounter. And they’re up to the task, sometimes lasting a lifetime. A lot of this depends on you, however. It’s important that you keep up with good at-home care and scheduled checkups in order to prolong the life of your new crowns and or bridge.

If you need to replace teeth and you want to explore crowns and bridges, call Polwarth Family Dentistry in Lakewood.