dental porcelain crown

I am happy to be a dentist in this era. The technology available to dentists today has grown vastly, even in the last 20 years!
If you notice the tooth in the picture here it is indistinguishable from the other teeth. Only in the X-ray can you notice that this tooth is actually a crown.

To be specific this tooth is a Lava crown. It is a strong Zirconia mixture made in various colors by 3M. When we overlay this structure with porcelain it looks, as you can see, like a real tooth.

Less invasive dentistry is the key to tooth preservation. Thanks to advanced dentistry and technology, we can preserve rather than remove unnecessary tooth structure.

Single implant tooth replacement is the new gold standard of dentistry. With a great deal of training and planning, implant dentists can remove, graft and replace a single tooth in just a few hours. This replaced implanted tooth will immediately look and function like it’s natural predecessor.

There are multiple reasons to need a dental implant. A tooth may be missing from birth. A tooth may be lost to decay or periodontal disease. A tooth may be broken or simply in some way hopeless. Dental implants have come to the place where they look and function as good as original teeth.

Much research has gone into the brand of dental implant we have chosen for our office. The implants we have chosen for our Manhattan office have a special shape that allow them to closely mimic the original root shape. You will notice in the before and after X-ray on the left that this is true. Looking at the top before photograph this tooth had been restored many times and had multiple attempts to keep it healthy. With many problems it was time to remove it and place a dental implant.

Together with the patient we chose a dental implant to allow a long term realistic looking dental restoration. Unlike a bridge a dental implant will preserve the bone around a tooth. A dental implant can be flossed and cleaned just like a real tooth would. A bridge would require special efforts and still can decay. An implant will be stable for many many years.

Our course of action was to remove the tooth and bone graft the area. The bone graft fills in the socket remaining after tooth removal and prepares for the dental implant. During 4 month healing a composite tooth was bonded in the existing space so the patient could go about normal life and smile without worrying about a missing tooth! The Dental Implant was placed and the temporary tooth was bonded back in place during 5 months of healing. On the final day the permanent porcelain crown was placed and cemented in place.

Between the top and bottom photographs you will see a vast improvement of color and gum tissue health around the implant. You will also note that our new crown color and translucency on the implant matches the neighboring teeth much better than before! This tooth has been in full function for the past 6 months and our New York City patient has been very pleased with his new tooth.