Dental Bridges
What Is a Dental Bridge?
- A dental bridge is a false tooth that is used to fill the gap created by missing tooth or teeth.
- A gap between your teeth can be potentially dangerous to your dental health, as it can cause your teeth to shift resulting in a change in your bite that could be painful.
- Dental bridges help alleviate this problem by using the two surrounding teeth as anchors to hold a false tooth in the place where the gap is. Typically, crowns are placed over the surrounding teeth, and the false tooth, known as a pontic, is fused between them.
What can I expect during treatment to get a bridge?
- A minimum of two visits are required for placing a dental bridge.
- At the first visit, three important steps are completed.
- Firstly, the surrounding teeth are prepared to be fitted with a crown. This may include filing down the tooth so that the crown can fit over it.
- Secondly, an impression is taken of your teeth which will be sent to a laboratory to prepare the bridge and crown.
- Finally, the dentist fits your teeth with a temporary bridge to protect them while the bridge is prepared at the laboratory.
- At the second visit, the temporary bridge is removed and the new bridge received from the laboratory is fitted and adjusted.
- More visits may be necessary to check and adjust the fit.
Are there different types of dental bridges?
- Traditional fixed bridge:
- This is the most common type of dental bridge, in which crowns are placed over the two surrounding teeth and used as anchors to hold the fake tooth in place.
- The false tooth is usually made of either porcelain fused to metal or ceramics.
- Resin-bonded bridge:
- In a resin-bonded bridge, metal bands are bonded to the surrounding teeth with resin and used to hold a plastic false tooth in place.
- This type of bridge is typically used in areas of the mouth that undergo less stress, such as the front teeth.