Keep Your Teeth Intact With Dental Crowns & Bridges in Irvine
Dr. Charles Tozzer has repaired countless smiles throughout the years with dental crowns and bridges in Irvine. That’s because a crown is one of our most versatile dental restorations.
Restore Your Smile with Crowns and Bridges
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Restore Your Smile with Crowns and Bridges
Dental crowns and bridges are meant to restore tooth structure. Basically, what happens when you get a cavity, you get a filling. A filling will weaken a tooth. A little filling weakens it a little. A big one, or multiple ones, weaken it lot. A crown comes into play when 50% of the tooth has restorations, and if the tooth has been weakened. Those fillings have become like a wedge. Biting down, they tend to break teeth, in fact, split them off. This is when we have to go to what's called a crown. Now the crown is prepared differently. So it's like a hoop around an old whiskey barrel or a wine barrel. The crown will strengthen the tooth, whereas a filling will weaken the tooth. A little filling weakens that a little, a big filling weakens it a lot. So the crown is meant to strengthen the tooth, wraps around it and holds it together. They also look better instead of a big, ugly old silver filling.
The crown is a tooth colored material, porcelain usually. Not only does it restore function, but it restores the aesthetics. Think about this. Dental restorations are prosthesis. You don't think of them that way, but they are, like eyeglasses or hearing aids. Unlike those two things, they restore the function like they do, but they also restore the aesthetics. When we do a crown, we make it look like a natural tooth as well as working like a natural tooth.
What a bridge is designed to do is replace a missing teeth. Imagine a bridge over a river. It starts on one end and goes across to the other. Everybody knows what a bridge is. When it comes to dental bridges, it does a lot of the same thing. Basically, the most fundamental one is you have two teeth doing the work of three. Now two healthy teeth can do the work of three as long as those teeth on either side, we call the abutments, are sound, a two tooth, a three, a four tooth bridges are quite common. As the span gets longer, like the Golden Gate, the bridge sometimes is not strong enough and you need to consider implants where we put a manmade root in and replace the missing teeth with manmade substitutes. That's what an implant is.
We can use dental crowns to:
- Repair cavities that are too large for fillings
- Cover cosmetic issues like stained or misshapen teeth
- Strengthen weak or damaged teeth
- Seal teeth following root canals
- Mend cracked or broken teeth
- Replace missing teeth when used with dental implants or to support dental bridges
To see if a crown or bridge can fix your dental damage, call Tozzer Dental at 949-304-2897. Remember, second opinions are free!
Your Restorative Dentist Will Make Sure You Get the Right Crown
Unlike most general dentists, we have our own lab on-site so we can ensure your crown looks natural and blends easily into your smile. We use porcelain, which is prized for its beauty and durability. Depending on several factors including the location of your tooth, Dr. Tozzer will recommend:
- An All-Porcelain Crown – For the most natural appearance, we’ll use a crown made completely of porcelain. With an all-porcelain crown, you’ll never have to worry about a dark line showing at your gums, which can happen with a metal crown.
- A Porcelain-Fused-to-Metal Crown – These crowns work well for back teeth, as they can better withstand chewing pressure. A PFM crown is stronger than a porcelain-only crown. In the back of your mouth, there’s no need to be concerned about metal showing at your gumline.
We are so confident in the quality of our work that we guarantee it! Porcelain crowns in the front of the mouth will last five years, and PFM crowns in the back will last 10 years. If they don’t, we’ll replace them at no cost to you.
Replace Teeth Using a Bridge With or Without Implants
A dental bridge can replace a single tooth or multiple teeth in a row. A traditional bridge is attached to dental crowns supported by teeth on either side of the gap in your smile. To avoid putting crowns on healthy teeth, we can instead attach your bridge to dental implants.
For dental crowns and bridges in Irvine, call 949-304-2897.
