crowns

Cracked teeth can be difficult to diagnose. Many of our teeth have hair-line fractures and can be fine for years, but one hard bite, and that can change instantly. This patient was complaining of pain on biting pressure when we diagnosed him with Cracked Tooth Syndrome. The tooth was hypersensitive to hot/cold, and any biting pressure. We had an Endodontist evaluate tooth #15, but they determined no root canal was necessary at this point. We placed a full coverage, same-day ceramic crown over the tooth, and his pain was resolved. Left untreated, the tooth would have needed a root canal, or worst-case   scenario, an extraction if the tooth would have split in half. At Water Tower Dental Care in Chicago, we have the technology to take magnified intra-oral pictures, 3D CT radiographs, trans-illumination, and other diagnostic tools to help find and treat these conditions before they become a bigger problem. If you feel like you may have a cracked tooth, or you have teeth that are sensitive to pressure, give us a call…we can help. 

You can’t always put off seeing the dentist. If you have a simple cavity, it’s easy to wait to see the dentist for a couple of days. A painful cracked tooth is another story. We’re here to help you figure out what you should do if you have a dental emergency in Chicago. The more prepared you are, the quicker you’ll be able to deal with any serious dental issues.

What Are Dental Emergencies?

Just because you experience a little tooth pain or discomfort doesn’t mean you need to drop everything and see the dentist right away. Some dental issues require more immediate attention, whereas others can wait a few days or weeks. Here are some potential teeth problems that may be considered dental emergencies:

• Lost tooth
• Knocked-out tooth
• Loose tooth
• Tooth that’s moved out of alignment
• Chipped tooth that’s in pain
• Fractured or cracked tooth
• Serious tissue injury inside your mouth
• Acute teeth, gum or tissue pain
• Continuous bleeding from tissues inside your mouth
• Infection inside your mouth

What To Do If You’re Experiencing a Dental Emergency in Chicago

If you have a dental emergency in Chicago, you need to see a dentist right away. This is why we Water Tower Dental Care offers 24/7 emergency dental care to our patients on The Magnificent Mile. All you have to do is give us a call and we’ll take care of the rest.  If you call us outside of normal office hours, please listen to the recording on our voicemail and follow the instructions. Emergency calls are answered at all hours of the day, as is emergency dental care.

CEREC One-Visit Crowns

One of the most common dental emergencies at Water Tower Dental Care is a cracked, chipped or fractured tooth. Whether you crack your tooth on food or knock your tooth against something, this type of injury can cause serious pain. A broken tooth can also cause your nerves to be exposed to dangerous bacteria, which can cause dangerous infection.
We can treat this issue quickly and effectively with a CEREC One-Visit Crown, alleviating your pain and providing you with a full tooth again. Using our CEREC technology, we can perfectly fit, craft and place your crown, inlay or onlay in just one hour. It’s the perfect solution to a painful dental emergency.
Experiencing a dental emergency? Call us right now. If you’re calling during us during our off-hours, please follow the simple instructions in the recording you hear. We provide emergency dental care in Chicago 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

When it comes to your social and professional life, teeth can make a big difference. That’s why we’re focused on making your smile as beautiful as possible. Over the years, we’ve become known as the top cosmetic dentistry in Chicago for our work on pearly whites. Here are a few of our most popular teeth treatments in Water Tower Place, Chicago and why so many people love them.

Invisalign Clear Braces

Traditional braces are so five years ago. But really, why wear annoying, obtrusive and unattractive traditional braces when you can wear invisible braces? Invisalign has become one of our most popular dental treatments because of how easy and transparent it is. Just like traditional braces, Invisalign straightens out your teeth over time. But it does this with clear aligners that can easily be removed whenever you’d like. Learn how Invisalign can fix your underbite too! Take a look at our before and after Invisalign photos here.

Teeth Whitening

There’s a reason most celebrities have shiny white teeth. Whether it makes sense or not, pearly whites make you look young, healthy and successful. We have a ton of patients come through our offices for Zoom! Teeth Whitening because it can make your teeth up to ten shades whiter after just one single one-hour treatment. Fast, effective and long lasting, you can’t beat Zoom! when it comes to teeth whitening. We also offer take home teeth whitening trays if you prefer your couch to the dental chair.
[caption id="attachment_2288" align="aligncenter" width="604"] A Water Tower Dental Care patient before and after Invisalign, teeth whitening and dental veneers.[/caption]

Dental Veneers

Mask your teeth imperfections with dental veneers! Veneers are so popular because they successfully cover up a variety of different teeth problems, including stains, odd shapes, chips, big spaces, and crooked teeth. Whether Mother Nature didn’t give you the teeth of your dreams, or injury or age has left you with teeth you don’t recognize, veneers can be carefully placed onto your teeth to perfect issues. Check out our before and after porcelain veneers photo gallery!
Carefully designed for your mouth, more permanent porcelain veneers are best for severe dental issues, while minimal prep veneers are the better choice for those who have smaller problems and/or less time. Find out which type of veneer is best for you here.

CEREC One Visit Crowns

Traditionally, it took at least two visits and countless hours to fit, create and place dental crowns. With CEREC One Visit Crown technology, crowns can be perfectly customized and placed to match your teeth in just one hour. You can see why this treatment has become one of our most popular. Take a look at Water Tower Dental patients before and after CEREC One Visit Crowns. Learn more about fixing a broken tooth with CEREC One Visit Crowns here!
These are our most popular cosmetic dental treatments for a reason: they make your smile look better than ever while saving you time! Contact us to learn more about the treatments our office in Water Tower Place, Chicago offers.

Everyone in Chicago knows that the city’s winter weather can be hard on your commute, skin and nose. But extremely cold weather can also affect your teeth and mouth. Many Chicagoans experience uncomfortable sensations or even extreme pain in their mouth while in icy weather. Let’s take a look at why that happens and what you can do to keep your teeth and mouth feeling great all winter long!

The Effects of Chicago Winter Weather On Your Teeth & Mouth

Since teeth are naturally porous and sensitive, many people experience tooth sensitivity in the cold. Subtle irritation from time to time is normal and usually nothing to worry about. However, constant sensitivity in the same area of your mouth during the winter months may mean that the cold air is revealing a problem with your teeth.
If you have regular discomfort in the same area of your tooth, it could be caused by a variety of issues, including tiny fractures, bigger cracks, thin enamel, teeth clenching habits, or cavities. Each of these problems can lead to sensitive areas of your teeth being exposed, which in turn can cause teeth pain and discomfort all winter long.
Fillings, crowns or bridges that don’t fit your teeth anymore may also cause sensitivity.
Now let’s not let teeth take all of the spotlight here. Gum disease may be the culprit when it comes to your sensitive teeth and mouth. Gum disease can cause your gums to move away from your teeth, exposing your very sensitive roots. Two telltale signs of gum disease are sore and inflamed gums.
Surprisingly enough, a sinus infection can also be the source of your tooth pain. Swollen sinuses put pressure on the roots of your teeth, which can cause your teeth to hurt. This typically occurs in the back top teeth.
Finally, cold sores are known to wreak havoc during the winter thanks to the flu, stress, fatigue, and extreme weather conditions, according to Sitavig.

Tips To Keep Your Teeth & Mouth Feeling Better During The Winter

Now that you know what’s causing your teeth and mouth sensitivity during the winter, it’s time to get to the important part: how to make it better. If you’re experiencing regular irritation, you should visit a dentist to get to the root of your problem. It could be something serious, like gum disease. But until then, here are some tips to hold you over:

• Breathe in through your nose as much as you can. This way, the cold air won’t be able to reach sensitive areas in your mouth and cause irritation.
• Try not to clench your teeth when you are cold. Clenching can cause tooth erosion and more pain in cold weather.
• Drinking something warm, like tea, when you’re out in the cold should help ease any pain caused by low temperatures.
• Make sure you’re brushing your teeth properly twice a day and flossing once a day.
• Try using a fluoride mouthwash and toothpaste designed for sensitive teeth twice a day to create extra protection from the cold air.
• If you have allergies or think you might have a sinus infection, visit a doctor to find out how to treat it.
• Avoid stress, keep your lips moisturized and wash your hands during the winter months to minimize cold sore breakouts, according to Sitavig. You can also receive laser therapy for cold sores at our offices in Chicago! Laser therapy will help reduce the number of breakouts you have by destroying the herpes simplex virus.
• If your teeth sensitivity or mouth problems persist or feel abnormally bad, make time to visit your dentist. You may have a dental issue that needs to be addressed before it gets worse.

Want to get rid of your winter mouth and teeth issues once and for all? Visit Chicago’s top general and cosmetic dentistry! We’ll do everything we can to get to the root of your mouth discomfort and tooth sensitivity issues.

Constant tooth pain is irritating, and can be downright debilitating if it hurts enough. If you experience regular bottom teeth pain, the first thing you should do is visit your dentist so that whatever is wrong doesn’t get worse. But it doesn’t hurt to learn what might be causing your bottom teeth to hurt in the meantime. Here are 5 reasons why your bottom teeth may hurt.

You’ve Got A Cavity

Cavity Tooth Pain Symptoms: Typically, pain caused by cavities can be felt sharply, consistently and suddenly in one or more teeth when you bite down. Cavities can also cause sensitivity.
If you haven’t been getting rid of all of the plaque on and around your bottom teeth by brushing, flossing and using mouthwash, you may have cavity. Cavities can also be caused by gum recession. Cavities are holes in your teeth created by acids, which love eating away at your enamel. Thankfully, fixing a cavity is quick and easy. All your dentist has to do is fill it in with dental filling material.

Your Root Might Be Infected

Infected Root Tooth Pain Symptoms: If you experience a severe and constant bottom toothache that causes throbbing or shooting pain, you may have an abscessed tooth, or root infection. Your teeth may also feel sensitive to extreme temperatures and when biting down, and your gums and glands may be swollen.
Severe tooth decay is usually the reason why an infection develops at the root of your tooth. When acids have been allowed to dissolve your enamel for a while, bacteria infects the center of your tooth (the pulp) between your gum and your tooth. If you don’t see a dentist to cure your infection, it can spread to the bones that support your bottom teeth. A root canal can be performed to rid your teeth of the infection.

You’re Clenching and/or Grinding Your Teeth

Clenching/Grinding Tooth Pain Symptoms: If you bottom teeth pain is less severe, and more of a constant throbbing or achy pain, you may grind or clench your teeth too much.
Many people clench their teeth when they are concentrating or working out at the gym. You may also grind your teeth while you’re sound asleep. When you grind or clench your teeth often, you wear down your enamel, which exposes the tubes that lead to your nerves. This can lead to sensitivity and tooth pain. If you think you clench or grind your teeth, speak to your dentist about wearing a mouth guard.

You Fractured Your Tooth

Fractured Tooth Pain Symptoms: If you experience irregular pain in a bottom tooth when you’re chewing or when your tooth is exposed to extreme temperatures, you may have a fractured tooth.
The center of your tooth contains soft tissue, called the pulp, where your nerves are located. Your enamel and dentin, which is the hard layer underneath your enamel, protect your nerves. The closer your pulp is to being exposed, the more you irritate your nerves, which can cause pain and sensitivity. There are several different dental procedures that treat cracked teeth, depending on the severity, from crowns to root canals.

You Have Other Serious Health Issues

Bottom teeth pain isn’t always a sign that you have dental issues. Teeth pain can also be caused by a variety of other serious health issues that you might not even think of. These include heart attacks, sinus infections, cluster headaches, viral infections, diabetes, nerve-related disease, alcohol or drug abuse, and more.
The only way to truly find out what is causing your bottom teeth to hurt is to speak to your dentist. They’ll be able to get to the root of your teeth pain and provide you with solutions to make you pain-free again.

From putting on caps to placing dental veneers, dentists do a lot of interesting things to keep your teeth in tip-top shape. If you live your daily life outside of the dental world, you might find all of the stuff we do to be a bit confusing. We’re here to break down some of the most popular cosmetic dental treatments we offer at Water Tower Dental Care to help you better understand which procedures can best help your smile. Here’s the difference between caps, crowns, veneers, onlays, inlays and fillings.
Dental Crowns and Caps are actually the same thing. Dentists place crowns, or caps, on a tooth for three reasons: when it needs more strength, to keep two parts of a cracked tooth together, or to add material to a broken tooth or a worn down tooth. Typically, the materials used include metal, porcelain or a variety of the two. Learn about our CEREC One-Visit Crowns here!
Dental Veneers are used for purely cosmetic purposes, masking crooked, gapped, chipped, broken, worn down, stained or oddly-shaped teeth. Veneers are extremely thin pieces of porcelain or resin composite materials that are bonded to the front surface of your teeth to make them look better. We offer Minimal Prep and Porcelain Veneers at our Chicago dentist office.
Onlays are used to fill in large cavities that are too severe for a normal filling, but not severe enough to require a crown. Onlays cover one or more of the rounded edges of your teeth, or your entire tooth’s chewing surface. They can look just like your natural tooth and are typically made up of gold, porcelain or composite metal. Onlays require your dentist to remove less of your natural tooth than crowns. This is why they are sometimes called partial crowns.
Dental Inlays are used for the same purpose as onlays, but only fill in the space between the rounded edges of your tooth, at the center of its chewing surface. They fill in a tooth that is too damaged for a filling, but not so severe that it needs a crown.
Fillings are used to replace decayed portions of your tooth (cavities) with fillers, such as gold, porcelain, silver amalgam, composite resin fillings or tooth-colored plastic. Fillings can also be used to fix and improve the appearance of broken or worn-down teeth.
Now you’re one step closer to becoming a dental expert! If you have any more questions about your teeth or dental solutions, feel free to chat with us. We would love to help put you on a better path to a healthy smile for the rest of your life with better knowledge about your teeth.

Balancing work, friends, family, hobbies and relaxation time is hard enough. Trying to find the time to squeeze in a dentist appointment to fix your broken tooth before it gets worse may seem impossible. You need to fix your broken tooth before your nerves are exposed to dangerous bacteria that can cause serious infection, but you can’t seem to find the time to get around to making multiple visits to the dentist. That’s where CEREC One-Visit Crowns come in. 
In the past, having a porcelain crown created and placed took at least two visits to the dentist. With our CEREC technology, it only takes one hour to perfectly fit, craft and place your crown, inlay or onlay. Sound too good to be true? We’ll take a look at how exactly CEREC One-Visit Crowns work at Water Tower Dental Care in Chicago so that you get the full picture.
Doubting if CEREC One-Visit Crowns work? Here’s a review from one of Water Tower Dental Care’s CEREC patients: “The tooth feels like it’s my old tooth, so there’s no difference. And of course, the thing that’s really cool about it is it looks like your teeth, so no one really knows that I’ve got a crown in my mouth.”

How CEREC Creates and Places the Perfect Crown in One Hour

You’re probably wondering how exactly CEREC One-Visit Crowns work so well after being created and placed in just one hour. Traditionally, you have to have your dentist make an impression of your tooth, send that impression to a dental lab, receive a temporary crown, wait weeks for your final crown to get crafted, hope that the fit and color are right, and, if so, finally get the crown placed. As you can see, this is a long and drawn-out process that leaves lots of room for human error.
At Water Tower Dental Care, we’ve replaced this traditional way of doing things with the latest dental crown technology, making our process much more precise and accurate. Here’s the step-by-step process:

• First, our Chairside Economical Restorations of Esthetic Ceramics (CEREC) machine creates a 3D image of your teeth and oral structures using a special camera.
• It then designs the crown, inlay or onlay with 3D modeling, determining the size and shape for a perfect fit for your teeth.
• The images are then sent to Water Tower Dental Care’s in-house milling unit, which carves the crown, inlay or onlay out of a porcelain block.
• After the computers have built the perfect porcelain restoration, our doctors take over, custom coloring, polishing and placing the crown, inlay or onlay and having you ready to go within the hour.

The Perfect Crown and Fit Every Time

Since almost every step of the process is completed by accurate computerized technology, there’s virtually no room for human error. This means you won’t have to come back into the office for another fitting or correction. Your CEREC One-Visit Crowns are custom colored and polished during your visit to accurately match the rest of your teeth. Nobody will be able to notice that you’re wearing a crown. You also won’t have to deal with temporary crowns falling out, additional injections or unsightly metal in your teeth. Best of all, if you’re unhappy with your current crowns or fillings, we can use CEREC One-Visit Crowns to immediately replace them.
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If you want to learn more about CEREC One-Visit Crowns, feel free to give us a call at (312) 787-2131. We would love to help you find the easiest way to keep your teeth looking and feeling their best!

Water Tower Dental is committed to staying at the forefront of technological advancements in the field of dentistry. One of the most exciting advancements in the last few years has been the introduction and updates of the CEREC, a software innovation that allows dentists to digitally design all-ceramic crowns and porcelain veneers in just one visit.
CEREC offers a metal-free alternative to crowns. Rather, CEREC uses all-ceramic crowns to cover your tooth and protect it from more damage. The best yet - your crown can be completed in one day!

Why Would You Need CEREC and a Crown?

Before understanding what CEREC does, it’s best to understand why you would need a crown. Crowns come into play when an old filling or tooth becomes cracked or broken. When this happens, your dentist must remove the filling and compromised areas, and place a crown or cap over the tooth.
Crowns are typically made from a combination metal, porcelain, or ceramic. A crown procedure starts with your dentist shaving down your tooth so a crown could be placed atop of it. Next, they would take a wax molding of the shaved tooth and its surrounding neighbors that will help create a crown. Then, either the dentist or a separate lab would need to create the porcelain crown from the wax mold provided. Once it is created (which can take weeks) the crown is placed over your tooth and adhered tightly to protect your tooth from any further damage.
The trouble with this method can be the amount of time it takes from when your dentist prescribes a crown and when you actually receive the crown. The time in between can be uncomfortable, as well, as you have to make several visits to your dentist to finish the procedure. With CEREC you can avoid these inconveniences and receive a metal-free crown within one visit.

How Does CEREC Work?

The beginning of the crown process is the same. First, your dentist will shave down your tooth to prepare it for a crown. However, rather than a wax mold, your dentist is able to use the CEREC scanner to make a 3D image of your tooth and the surrounding area. The image is uploaded to a design unit with uses CAD/CAM software to create a 3D model of the new crown.
Once a crown is designed, your dentist will use an onsite-milling machine to create the crown from a block of high quality ceramic. Once it is made, your dentist will use polish and stain to make the color of the crown match that of your teeth. Once you and your dentist are happy with the look of the crown, it is placed over the shaven tooth and adhered with cement. Simple as that.
CEREC’s technology can be used for any crown or cap and is a great advancement within dentistry. Same-day technology is making it easier for patients and doctors alike. If you would like to more about this great technology, or are interested setting up an appointment with Water Tower Dental to help crown a tooth, contact us today, we’d be happy to help.