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What is the Difference Between Caps, Crowns, Veneers, Inlays and Fillings?

August 13th, 2015

What is the Difference Between Caps, Crowns, Veneers, Onlays and Fillings?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.

Do CEREC One-Visit Crowns Actually Work?

July 31st, 2015

Do CEREC One-Visit Crowns Actually Work?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

CEREC One-Visit Crown machineYou’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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jm11kF9AzY
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!