There are three ways of dealing with cavities in a tooth:
- Small Cavities: Drill out the decay and fill the cavity with composite (typically called a “filling”)
- Bigger Cavities: File down the decayed portion of the tooth, and then place a “crown” over the remaining healthy tooth
- More decay than healthy tooth: Extract the tooth and replace it with an implant or bridge.
For option #2, you may remember visits to the dentist when they took impressions of your teeth (using the putty-like substance in a mouth tray) and then sent those impressions to the dental lab, who would send back a crown for the dentist to place on your tooth.
This process has been updated and improved with the advancement of dental technology. At Smile Dental Lakeside, we are using the Medit i500 Intra-Oral Scanner.
This device produces more accurate scans, in turn producing longer lasting crowns that usually fit on the first try. With up to ten microns (one micron = one millionth of a meter) of detailed scan, the crown will have a greater fit than standard impressions. This process is more eco-friendly than traditional impressions, as the scans are sent to the dental lab digitally. Your visit to Smile Dental will be faster without the impressions process and there is faster turnaround for the crown, so it can be installed sooner, producing more accurate (better fit to your tooth) and longer-lasting crowns.
Schedule an appointment today so we can clean your teeth, check for cavities and any other dental issues that we can address for you. The sooner you come in, the better your results will be, as many dental issues are time-sensitive
