Dental Advances: Non-Metal Crowns

A patient came to the office recently. She had spent a considerable sum of money with another dentist for bone grafting and implants and wanted to know why she had “a gray line” showing at the top of her relatively new crowns (two years old).

Her dentist had placed crowns on her top front teeth and the reason for the gray line is that her gums had receded and now the crowns’ metal substructure was showing — as you can see in the photo below that was taken of another patient.

With today’s advanced dental technologies, dentists don’t have to use metal-based crowns and bridge work — something that was virtually unthinkable even five years ago. Using reinforced porcelain, dentists can develop crown and bridge treatments that look 100% natural.

Porcelain also has a natural translucency so that when you smile, the light reflects off your teeth and the porcelain in a natural manner — and making it very hard to tell the difference between your real teeth and your crowns.

As you can see in these before and after photos, non-metal crowns are gorgeous!

These new porcelains are also very strong and last up to 10 years with good care. Although metal-based crowns do last longer — approximately 15 years — non-metal crowns and bridges provide you with a beautiful smile for their entire lifetime.

So instead of having to suffer with ugly crowns for 13 years, you get a beautiful smile for 10 years!

We’ve been “metal free” for over 10 years at our Boston office and have placed many non-metal crowns for patients. The benefits of our cosmetic dentistry services include:

• Custom-made porcelain crowns that exactly match existing tooth color for a perfect smile
• Correcting crooked or mis-spaced teeth and/or closing gaps between teeth
• Smooth and even gum lines with no tell-tale gray line
• Fabricating crowns and contouring your gum line so that when you smile, your top teeth show naturally but not your gum line

If you have unsightly crowns, be sure to ask you dentist about non-metal crowns. You deserve a dazzling and perfect smile!