A crown is placed to cover or "cap" a damaged tooth. This is often necessary as a permanent treatment to protect, strengthen, and hold a tooth together. There are many reasons a tooth may need a crown. It may be needed to replace a large filling, a broken tooth, or to stabilize a tooth that has had a root canal, among other reasons.
Traditionally, dental crowns required two visits, one to re-shape the existing tooth to accept the crown and another to cement the crown (which was fabricated in a lab), requiring a temporary crown in between. With the use of CAD/CAM technology, our E4D crowns are made by scanning an image of your mouth and fabricating (milling) the crown right in our office to be placed the very same day! Of course, lab crowns are still available as well. Often this decision is made based on the best material for you.
When you're missing a tooth, a fixed bridge is almost like getting the tooth back. Bridges can be supported by natural teeth or implants. A bridge is really just crowns connected by a false tooth (or pontic) to create a permanent replacement for what was once a space.
