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MORE
GOOD REASONS TO SMILE
Just
a Day Away
CEREC
3 and Illumine let our patients enjoy a healthy, beautiful smiles in just
one visit.
Bonded
restorations provide superior beauty and function.
Achieving
a Beautiful Smile
How
to prepare for, or better yet prevent, dental emergencies.
The
power of prevention keeps our patients smiling.
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FYI
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In the old days
tooth repair could be a pretty traumatic experience, for you and your
tooth. The decay was removed,
along with a portion of your tooth, and the resulting cavity was filled
with an amalgam material made up of silver, tin, copper and mercury.
If your tooth was severely damaged it was prepared for a crown.
This meant reducing the size of the tooth enough to allow a metal,
or a metal and porcelain, crown to fit over it.
The crown, fabricated by a laboratory, was then cemented, or glued,
to the tooth.
These
techniques were effective, restoring function to your damaged tooth, and
they are still an option today. But
there were drawbacks. Both
techniques required that a considerable amount of tooth structure be
destroyed to make room for the restoration.
The metal in these restorations compromised the appearance of your
smile. The amalgam filling
could contract and expand, causing the walls of the tooth to weaken and
allowing a space, or “leak” between the filling and your tooth which
left room for decay to set in, again.
Because of the time required for the laboratory to fabricate
the crown, two or more separate visits were necessary before the crown was
ready to be cemented to your tooth. But
the biggest drawback was that neither type of restoration could be bonded
to the tooth.
Just as the
word implies, a “bonded” restoration virtually becomes part of your
tooth. It can really hold it
together, strengthening the structure of the tooth.
And because the materials used are made of resin composites and
ceramic, they are metal free, which provides a natural, beautiful smile.
The preparation for a bonded crown can be much more conservative than
when metal materials are used. Less reduction of your tooth structure will be necessary, and
the bonding process that adheres the restoration to the tooth actually
makes it stronger.
The process and materials made possible by the
addition of the CEREC 3
often mean that only the damaged part of the
tooth has to be replaced. |
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So
instead of reducing the size of the entire tooth for a full crown, the
tooth is prepared by removing the damaged, unstable portion of your tooth
and milling a custom inlay, onlay, or partial crown, which is then bonded
to the tooth.
You won’t be able to tell where your tooth leaves off and
the restoration begins, and your tooth will be stronger than before.
Most importantly, we can leave the healthy part of your natural
tooth untouched. This is the
most conservative treatment available if the damage to your tooth is
isolated, but too extensive to be restored with a filling. If we diagnose
the damage to your tooth early enough we may be able to restore it using a
composite resin filling material. Because
the filling will be bonded to your tooth it is not necessary to remove as
much of the tooth structure. While
amalgam fillings were designed to “fill” the hole left after your
decay was removed, even in under ideal conditions they do not strengthen
the tooth.
The bonding process used to place composite resin
fillings helps to hold the tooth together.
The material is matched to your tooth shade, bonded and light cured
to make the filing as hard and resistant to wear as your natural tooth.
A bonded
restoration is as individual and as beautiful as Cinderella’s slipper,
and a lot more likely to stay on.
And with the addition of the
CEREC
3, most bonded restorations
performed at Tinley Park Dental Care Center
require only a single appointment from start to beautiful finish!
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