Veneers, Crowns, and Bridges: Which One Fits Your Dental Needs?

Veneers, Crowns, and Bridges: Which One Fits Your Dental Needs?

Aug 24, 2023

Finding the Best Permanent Oral Restoration for Your Smile

Veneers, crowns, and bridges are all dental restorations that address different dental needs. However, they are all unique and serve different roles in dentistry. The type of dental restoration best befitting your oral needs depends on your dentist’s assessment of your oral cavity.

Understanding the Differences Between Veneers, Crowns, and Bridges

Veneers

They are thin shells or laminates, commonly featuring porcelain. However, some dental veneers feature composite resin. Veneers benefit your smile by bonding to the front surface of teeth, masking all underlying flaws. Usually, dentists customize veneers to restore only the front side, allowing you to retain most of your natural tooth structure.

The primary reason a dentist would recommend a dental veneer for your smile is to enhance the appearance of teeth and address cosmetic issues. Therefore, dental veneers are quite popular in cosmetic dentistry for improving dental flaws like discoloration, chips, gaps, or misalignment. While dental veneers provide a natural-looking and aesthetically pleasing smile, they are primarily for cosmetic purposes. Therefore, they may not be suitable for your teeth if you have significant structural damage or decay.

Crowns

Dental crowns in Beverly, MAare also known as dental caps. They are tooth-shaped restorations that closely mimic natural teeth, enough to cover the entire visible portion of a damaged or decayed tooth above the gum line. Ideally, a dental crown serves as a replacement for the exterior of a damaged natural tooth.

Dental crowns vary in material, typically featuring porcelain, metal alloys, or a combination of both. Their ability to completely cover a natural tooth is why dentists recommend them to patients with severely weakened, cracked, or broken teeth. Dental crowns can also restore your tooth after you undergo root canal treatment.

The primary role of a dental crown is to provide strength, protection, and restoration to an otherwise weak and damaged tooth while also improving its appearance. Although they are mostly suitable for restorative dentistry, dental crowns near you can be essential in cosmetic dentistry because they can be matched to the color of adjacent teeth for a natural look.

Bridges

Dental bridges in Beverly, MAare restorations that replace one or more missing teeth. Usually, they are ideal for replacing up to 3 missing teeth in a row. A dental bridge typically comprises one or more artificial teeth (pontics), depending on the number of lost natural teeth to replace. The pontics are then supported by dental crowns or implants on either side. Therefore, it is a prerequisite to have healthy adjacent teeth for you to receive dental bridges. If not, your dentist will recommend getting surgery to receive dental implants.

The adjacent healthy teeth or implants are the anchors necessary to hold the bridgework. As such, oral bridges are a fixed restoration, meaning you cannot remove them yourself. The dentist employs dental cement and lasers to permanently bond the bridgework to your adjacent natural teeth or implants. They restore the appearance, function, and bite alignment compromised by missing teeth.

Which of the Three is Ideal for You: Veneers or Crowns, or Bridges

Deciding on the best dental restoration for your smile is not a decision you can make yourself. Instead, liaise with one of your dentists at Beverly Dental Group, especially to benefit from a dental exam. A comprehensive evaluation allows a dentist to assess your oral cavity before determining the most suitable treatment. After the assessment, the dentist will recommend the best treatment based on the following key factors:

  1. Dental goals – to improve your teeth’s appearance, you may not need the same restoration as a patient seeking to repair broken or decayed teeth.
  2. Invasiveness of the procedure – between dental veneers and crowns, you can pick one over the other depending on how much dental work you are willing to undergo. Ultimately, dental crowns are more invasive than veneers.
  3. The health of existing teeth – if all your teeth are healthy and the structural integrity is intact, you can opt between veneers and crowns. However, dentists must extract unhealthy or severely compromised teeth to replace them with dental bridges.

Take Home

Getting a dental restoration for your smile is what you need to improve your oral functionality and beautify your smile. Generally, veneers are primarily for cosmetic enhancement, crowns for restoring and protecting damaged teeth, and bridges are used to replace missing teeth. For the best restoration for your smile, consult a dentist, as they can evaluate your oral health and provide personalized recommendations.

Out dental office in Beverly, MA also welcomes patients from the below nearby areas:

  • Wenham
  • Danvers
  • Salem
  • Peabody
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