CROWNING YOUR IMPLANTS IN RALEIGH, NC

With regular brushing, flossing and professional dental checkups, our smiles can potentially last a lifetime. However, with people living longer than ever, sometimes our teeth simply can’t keep up no matter how diligently we take care of them. If you’re one of the millions of people who have lost a tooth (or even a few teeth) due to injury or disease, dental implants are a fantastic option to help you rejuvenate your smile and restore your oral health. At Earwood Dentistry, we provide crowns to beautify your dental implants and make them match the rest of your teeth.

The easy answer is that a traditional dental crown is attached to your natural tooth structure and the dental implant crown is attached to a dental implant with a connector or abutment. For a more detailed explanation, keep reading.

A traditional dental crown is supported by a natural tooth’s root structure. It is often recommended when a significant portion of the visible tooth is no longer healthy, due to disease or decay, in order to maintain the natural tooth in place. To restore the tooth, the dentist will remove the damaged area, shape the remaining tooth structure, take an impression or digital scan and fabricate the dental crown. We provide the necessary information to customize the color, shape, and size so that the new restoration appears natural and functions appropriately. At Earwood Dentistry, we place the crown over the remaining portion of the tooth. When the fit and color meet both our patient and doctor’s expectations it is permanently bonded with a special dental adhesive material.

A dental implant crown is placed on top of a dental implant, the support system for a new tooth, replacing the root. The dental implant is usually placed by a prosthodontist or periodontist. Once the implant is ready for restoration, the patient will visit Earwood Dentistry where we will take a mold of the implant. A  dental implant crown will be fabricated to complete the restoration of the implant. Since a dental implant ends at the gum line, and there is no longer a tooth structure to fill the center of the dental implant crown, we insert a connector or abutment. The connector, made of a strong ceramic called Zirconia or titanium, will tie the submerged dental implant to the new crown. Now the three components – the implant, the abutment and the crown – are connected.