Getting crowns is a pain, especially if you’re a busy adult with limited paid time off (PTO).  If you go the traditional crown route, once you’re ready for a crown, you’ll have to make time for two appointments.   

At the first appointment, you have to sit through the process of taking impressions.  Then you're fitted with a temporary crown while your impressions and other information are sent to an off-site lab and the office sets up a follow up when your crown is back in the office.  If you're lucky, your permanent crowns will be placed on the second appointment. However, if something goes wrong the new crown might need further refining.  Suddenly, you're looking at 3 missed workdays, and instead of spending vacation days on the beach, you’re spending them in the dental chair.

Traditional crowns also mean dealing with a temporary crown until you can get back into the office – and in a time with COVID-19 quarantines, accepting a temporary crown means that you may end up spending weeks dealing with all the issues associated with a temporary crown, including:

• Only chewing on one side of your mouth
• Worrying about the crown coming off
• Increased sensitivity to heat and cold, up to and including pain
• The risk of food or bacteria slipping under the temporary crown, causing irritation and infection.

The traditional crown process leaves you, and your teeth, in limbo as you wait for a real crown.

CEREC® Saves Time and Worry

CEREC®, or Chairside Economical Restoration of Esthetic Ceramics, takes the hassle out of crowns.   CEREC® uses digital imaging, CAD, materials science, and ceramic milling and grinding technologies to construct a crown that matches the shape and color of your other teeth during a single office visit.  Instead of 2-3 lost days, you can go from digital impressions to the finished crown in about two hours.

Most CEREC® appointments begin with digital imaging.  Instead of taking a goopy, and sometimes inaccurate, mold, Dr. Thaney will use digital cameras and measuring technology to get exact measurements of your tooth and gum.  Then, using CAD, he will help you design your new tooth.  You can work together to create a tooth whose shape and color will leave you looking and feeling wonderful.

After you’ve designed your perfect tooth, it’s time to wait.  CEREC® machines take 30-45 minutes to mill your new tooth from a block of ceramic. Milling is like mechanized sculpting.  The machine begins with a large piece of a specially designed ceramic, then cuts away at all of the parts that aren’t your tooth.  Ceramics have a wide range of properties, but the ones used by CEREC® are designed to closely mimic the look, feel, and performance of a natural tooth, but with more durability.   A CEREC® crown is just like your original tooth, except better.

Finally, Dr. Thaney will fit and place your new crown.  Because digital imagery and CEREC milling are so precise, you'll have the crowns you want on the first try.  One, single 2-hour appointment, and you're ready to go use the rest of your PTO time on something you enjoy.

Do you want to save time while getting great crowns and preserving your smile?  Schedule today for your CEREC® appointment.

By Brockport Smiles

May 3, 2021