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CEREC Same-Day Crowns Make Smiling Easy

Written by Dr. DeAngelis

Dental technology has advanced significantly over the past ten years. Now dentists have the cutting-edge tools and machines to easily and efficiently improve their patients’ oral health. 

This is especially true for dental crowns. Traditional dental crowns have always required multiple trips to the dentist, messy impressions, and other complications. Thanks to new CEREC technology, your Carlsbad, CA dentist can now plan, create, and place dental crowns in a single visit. 

Here’s everything you need to know to understand how CEREC same-day crowns make it so easy to protect your oral health and smile with confidence. 

How Does a Dental Crown Work?

A dental crown is a specially designed “cap” that mimics the exact size and structure of your tooth. It’s used to cover a damaged tooth and restore the tooth’s shape, size, strength, and appearance. 

Crowns can be constructed from many different materials, including metal, resin, and ceramic. Each material offers unique benefits. 

Some patients prefer metal crowns since they’re strong and long-lasting, but due to their unsightly appearance, mental crowns are usually reserved for out-of-sight molars. Resin crowns tooth-colored and affordable, but they don’t offer the durability of metal crowns. 

This leaves one alternative that offers a win-win for all patients: ceramic crowns. Ceramic crowns are created with durable porcelain that creates a natural translucent appearance on your treated teeth. 

Who Needs Dental Crowns?

Dental crowns are commonly used in restorative dentistry procedures because they reinforce and protect damaged teeth. You can think of a dental crown as the first layer of protection against severe tooth damage or extraction. 

If you or dentist uncover any of the following dental issues in your mouth, a crown may be the best solution to prevent future complications:

  • You need to cover a tooth after a root canal
  • You want to cover or restore unattractive teeth
  • You need to reinforce a tooth with a large filling
  • You have a weak tooth that needs protection from future damage

By placing an extra layer of protection and support over vulnerable teeth, dental crowns offer an effective way to maintain your healthy smile and keep all of your teeth intact. 

How Do Traditional Crowns Work?

Traditional dental crowns have been used since the invention of modern dentistry to protect and strengthen vulnerable teeth. 

Placing a traditional dental crown requires two separate office visits. During the first appointment, your dentist takes x-rays and impressions of the affected tooth. These impressions are sent to a separate lab, where technicians create your permanent crown. This part of the process takes about two to three weeks, so your dentist provides a temporary crown to keep your damaged tooth protected. 

Your next appointment occurs when your final crown has been manufactured, shipped, and prepared by your dentist. The permanent crown is affixed to your tooth with a strong adhesive to keep it firmly in place.  

CEREC same-day crowns make this traditional process obsolete. CEREC technology eliminates the need for a lab entirely, allowing your dentist to complete every dental crown procedure in one visit. 

How Are CEREC Same-Day Crowns Different?

Chairside Economic Restoration of Esthetic Ceramics (CEREC) crowns serve the same purpose as traditional crowns: to repair and restore damaged or weakened teeth. The difference occurs in how CEREC crowns achieve that goal. 

The CEREC procedure uses computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) to perform the entire dental crown process in one office appointment. Here’s what the process looks like when you receive a CEREC crown at Dr. Bennetts Arvada, CO office:

  • An intraoral scanner takes pictures of your teeth to create a digital impression
  • The impression is sent to the CAD/CAM software machine that creates a digital tooth restoration
  • The tooth restoration is sent to the CEREC milling machine that mills the new crown from a block of ceramic in less than 15 minutes
  • Dr. Bennett polishes, prepares, and places the crown onto your affected tooth

This process is far more simple and efficient than the normal process of taking messy impressions and waiting for a separate lab to return the final crown for placement. 

The Top Benefits of CEREC Same-Day Crowns

CEREC same-day crowns offer unique benefits that were once impossible. 

  • Rapid Results. CEREC technology works so quickly that your tooth can be restored in as little as one hour, in one single visit. That means no pesky temporary restorations or follow-up appointments to worry about!
  • Precise Customization. The CEREC process is designed to preserve as much of your natural enamel as possible because it’s precisely milled to your tooth’s shape and structure. 
  • Aesthetically Pleasing. CEREC same-day crowns are customized to match the color of your surrounding teeth. The translucent porcelain material also creates a natural appearance that looks completely natural. When you smile, nobody will know your tooth contains a crown. 

Overall, CEREC same day dental crowns create beautiful and customized restorations that last decades. Gone are the days of taking messy impressions and dealing with temporary restorations before your final crown fitting. 

Schedule your appointment with Dr. DeAngelis and her experienced team at DeAngelis Family Dentistry in Carlsbad, CA. Dr. DeAngelis is committed to using cutting-edge technology to provide superior dental care to every patient. 

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