Dental Crowns While-U-Wait

[Hemidakota]

Anyone who has ever had a dental crown knows how unpleasant — and drawn out over weeks — the experience can be. Now, however, there is a new process which can get you in and out of the dentist office in about two hours from start to finish with a brand-new custom-made crown.

For those fortunate enough to be uninitiated in the lore of crowns, they are basically a replacement for broken, cracked, crooked, discolored or decayed teeth. (When you see a celebrity or a movie star smile, you’re looking at a mouthful of crowns.) The traditional process involves using a foul-tasting goop to take impressions, then drilling away the top part of the tooth that is to receive the crown, then covering the remaining stump with a “temporary” crown until the permanent one can be made, which usually takes several weeks.

While the patient waits for the permanent crown, the temporary one is prone to ooze the nauseating cement holding it in place, or even to pop off while eating or drinking. Also, the temporary crown usually looks like hell, giving the appearance that you’ve covered one of your teeth with tinfoil.

The new process involves, as does everything else these days, the use of computers. The procedure begins by spraying the tooth with a material that helps a tiny TV camera take a series of mapping images which will tell the computer exactly how the new crown has to be made. According to Dr. Alan Ripps, a professor of operative dentistry at Louisiana State University School of Dentistry, “It takes a three dimensional picture that not only gives you X and Y coordinates — how wide and thick it is — it also gives you length and depth.” Next, the computer designs the crown, then sends the design to a special machine that cuts the crown from a block of dental material in about fifteen minutes. As soon as the crown is finished, the dentist puts it in place. “It’s extremely accurate,” Ripps said. “It’s as accurate as any other techniques we have.”

The new process costs the patient about the same as the old one, and since there’s only one trip to the dentist office involved, it eliminates all the problems associated with temporary crowns as well as the dread of a return trip to have the permanent one put in. The “While-U-Wait” feature saves the patient time, aggravation, and even gasoline, which for many is no small consideration these days.