January 6, 2014

End the Embarrassment!...No More Fake-Looking Front Caps

The other day I was speaking with a new patient and she mentioned she hated the appearance of a large old filling in one of her front teeth.

“I actually thought about having it capped,” she said, “then I talked to some of my friends and they said I shouldn’t even think about doing it”.

“According to my friends, front crowns are bulky and the color never matched the surrounding teeth. Plus they end up looking black at the gum line. Basically my friends said the crowns looked so fake I’d be happier just living with the filling.”

From Fake-Looking to Fabulous

I understood where her friends were coming from but, fortunately, I was able to give my patient some good news. Today we are able to offer new kinds of crowns so natural looking only she and I would know her tooth was capped… Strong AND truly Beautiful.  In order to understand this breakthrough, it helps to know a little about what crowns do.

We Dentists use crowns when a substantial portion of a tooth is missing or damaged by injury or cavities. The crown restores the tooth by covering it entirely. It has to be strong and it must look right, as well.

For back teeth, which do the hardest work of chewing, we had only two choices – crowns or crowns made of porcelain that’s been heat bonded to a core of sturdy metal.

For front teeth, though, where appearance is most important, our only choice used to be the metal and porcelain crown. Sometimes that left us with serious cosmetic problems. 

Form Versus Function

The biggest problem was hiding the crown’s dark metal core. To do so, we needed to use porcelain that was thick and opaque – unlike your natural teeth which are translucent and let some light in and through.

The thickness of the porcelain potentially made the crowns bulky. Having to make the enamel opaque made it virtually impossible to match the color of the teeth surrounding the crown.

To make things even more difficult, porcelain and metal crowns have an edge where the porcelain ends and a rim of metal may show through. For back teeth this was rarely an issue.

In the front, we’d hide the metal rim by tucking it under patients’ gums. But as time went by, if gums receded a bit eventually a black line would appear where the crown met the gum.

Bottom line... Despite our best efforts, some  porcelain and metal crowns ended up positively screaming “FAKE.”

Today’s Better Way

Fortunately, thanks to new materials and techniques, we now have a number of aesthetically excellent choices for making crowns – including pure porcelain, new more advanced porcelain and metal crowns with only porcelain at the edge.

Today’s crowns can be sleek instead of bulky resulting in a truly natural look. Plus, there’s never a black line to give your secret away.

In fact, I’m willing to bet you’ve sat in my waiting room with folks who have these advanced new restorations and never even suspected their front teeth had been crowned.

A Job for Experts

The only drawback to these exciting breakthroughs is that they’re so new most dentists practicing today didn’t have the opportunity to learn about them in dental school.

As a result, many general dentists still offer only the old-style porcelain and metal crowns. 

Only practices dedicated to achieving the very best cosmetic results have made the commitment to learn the new techniques.

Just Ask

At our office we’ve made that commitment and have been using the new, more natural-looking crowns for some time. So we have the expertise – and years of experience – to offer you all the advantages they provide.

If you have an old-style front crown that embarrasses you every time you smile – or if you have front teeth that are cracked, chipped, have cavities or unsightly fillings – just ask us about today’s better way.

We’ll be delighted to show you how these exciting new crowns can give you the smile you deserve.