Same Day Crowns!

This is amazing stuff.  Im a gadget freak and tech-nerd, so I’m VERY excited about getting this technology in our office!  This piece of tech lets us design and create ceramic crowns right here in our own office!  Its like we are bringing manufacturing jobs into our office! Ok, that might be a stretch ? But still, its so cool!

First off, what is a crown used for?  When a tooth is weakened significantly from a big filling, cavity, crack or root canal therapy, the tooth is often at high risk of breaking apart.  If that happens, sometimes the whole tooth much be removed.  Enter the crown. This procedure places a protective cap over the tooth to help keep it from breaking apart.

Traditionally this was a multi-day procedutre: the first day the tooth was prepared, rubber impression was taken and sent to the lab, and a temporary plastic crown was placed  on the tooth.  About 2-3 weeks later the final crown returned from the lab… the temporary crown removed (if its hadnt fallen out already) and the final crown was placed.

Sometimes, this technique is still required… but for MANY cases we don’t have to go through all that.

Nowadays we can skip that 2 weeks!  We prepare the tooth, then we take a DIGITAL image that is loaded into a computer workstation.  On that workstation the images are all turned into a 3D rendering of your teeth.  We then design the actual crown right there in the treatment room.  You can turn around and watch us design YOUR crown!

The design is checked for fitment, and then the file is sent wirelessly to the milling chamber.  Over there, the milling machine cuts your crown out of a block of ceramic.  It takes about 25minutes, so you can bring a book, or watch TV right there in the treatment room.  After its milled, we check the fit again to make sure it’s meets our strict guidlelines.  Then its off to the firing oven to make the crown rock hard.

About an hour after we are doing preparing the tooth, your final crown is ready to be bonded in place!  Pretty neat technology!