Many people might notice us mention CEREC and wonder what that is and why it lets us create beautiful crowns and veneers on the same day, rather than having a 2 week wait while wearing a temporary as in most other dental offices.
CEREC is a name that is used for in office, computer aided design and milling or porcelain crowns and veneers. The technology has been around for over 20 years, however has been constantly improving and evolving. CEREC is a fully computerized system, however Dr. Adams has full control over the entire process through specialized design software and through hands on custom colouring of the final result. Dental labs now use similar technologies in order to make laboratory fabricated crowns as well.
The process begins in the exact same way as for a laboratory fabricated crown by Dr. Tom preparing the surface of the tooth in order to have a crown fabricated. Unlike laboratory crowns which involve taking a mold of the tooth to be sent away, with CEREC, 3D pictures are taken of the teeth which allows our computer to create a virtual model of your teeth very quickly on a specialized computer. Dr. Tom then can design the crown to fit precisely on this model, and it is then milled from a block of high strength ceramic. The end result is custom shade matched to blend in with your other teeth. Start to finish the process takes 1.5 hours with approximately a 1 hour wait to have the crown designed, and fabricated.
Why don't more dentists use this technology? Well, to be honest most are using similar technologies, however control of the process is done at an outside dental laboratory using stone models of your teeth that are scanned in to the laboratories computer. Due to the extra steps, and shipping time the process takes much longer for the same end result. Dr. Tom has gone through advanced training, and made the financial investment to bring the technology in-office in order to offer faster service. In spite of the investment that we have made in this technology, and the added convenience, we do not charge any more for this than a traditional laboratory fabricated crown!
Can CEREC be used for all crowns? No it can not, that is because ceramic crowns are not suitable in all areas, to find out if you are a candidate contact us to set up a consultation visit.