What Is Ceramic Tooth Reconstruction?
By Ronan Freyne | Published on December 21, 2010 | 0 Comments
Ceramic tooth reconstruction is the opposite of a tooth reconstruction done with silver or amalgam. According to Dr. Ronan Freyne, a cosmetic dentistry specialist in Chevy Chase, MD, dentists who use ceramic for their tooth reconstructions are able to give their patients much more favorable, aesthetically pleasing results.
Not only does Dr. Freyne favor the use of ceramic material over silver or amalgam, but he actually stopped offering silver fillings at his practice more than 15 years ago. The reason, explains Dr. Freyne, is because materials such as plastic resin and ceramic have rendered silver fillings obsolete. Dentists can achieve much better results with plastic resin and ceramic than they can with silver or amalgam.
When it comes to tooth restoration and reconstruction procedures, Dr. Freyne says there are three basic levels of severity. Each level requires the use of a slightly different material to repair.
Small Restorations
The first level of a tooth reconstruction could be a small filling. When a patient has a very small cavity, there is no reason to get excessively aggressive with treatment. Rather than take out a large portion of the tooth, which would be necessary with an amalgam filling, Dr. Freyne prefers using a plastic resin. Plastic resin is a tooth-colored material that is essentially just a type of hard plastic.
Medium Restorations
When Dr. Freyne is working on a medium-sized restoration – or filling a medium to large sized cavity – he prefers to use ceramic rather than plastic resin. The reason for this is that ceramic is a highly aesthetic material, even more so than plastic resin. What’s more, ceramic also happens to be much stronger than plastic resin.
By using ceramic on the medium-sized restoration procedures he offers at his practice, Dr. Freyne is able to create fillings that will support underlying tooth structure for a number of years. Patients who have fillings done with ceramic can expect those fillings to fare much better in the long run than those done with plastic resin.
Large Restorations
If a patient at Dr. Freyne’s practice has an extremely large cavity that needs a very large filling, then usually that patient will end up getting a crown. These crowns are made of ceramic, says Dr. Freyne, and they are most often necessary when dentists are working on full-coverage restorations. A full-coverage ceramic crown can protect the tooth underneath much more so than a medium to large-sized filling.
As Dr. Freyne explains, the best thing about ceramic, as well as a lot of the plastic resins, is that dentists who use these materials can be much more conservative with the teeth they are working on. Back when silver fillings were still in use, dentists used to remove two to three times more tooth structure than what needs to be removed today. Today’s fillings done with plastic resin or ceramic require no such thing, which is why dentists prefer using these materials for their larger tooth reconstruction projects.
*Disclaimer: The information on this website is not intended to substitute for the medical expertise and advice of your healthcare provider. We encourage you to discuss any decisions about treatment or care with an appropriate healthcare provider.