Crown & Bridge Dental Restorations

Perhaps the most sophisticated of dental restorations, the crown and bridge restoration is used to reconstruct and replace teeth that have been badly damaged or lost through trauma or disease. Prosthodontists are considered to be the experts in these types of restorations. Crown and Bridge restorations can be used on Dental Implants or on natural teeth. The photos below shows the use of crowns and a fixed bridge on one patient. 

This patient was a 55 year old women who was unhappy with the appearance of her smile. A dentist had previously placed crowns on her two front teeth and the result along with the extreme crowding of her dentition was not very attractive.

In order to determine how to best fix this problem, I made models of the patients teeth and did what is called a diagnostic wax-up to determine the form of an attractive dental restoration. The photo on the left show the patient's models with wax used to replace and restore the teeth to a better appearance.

The upper 6 front teeth were restored with all ceramic crowns to give her the best possible appearance. These crowns have no metal in them and look very much like real teeth.

The lower teeth were restored with a bridge (two of the natural teeth had to be extracted in order to eliminate the crowding). The final restorations can be seen on the left. The lower bridge color was a little too white and it was sent back to the lab to be re-colored. The resulting smile was a vast improvement from her original condition...