Not all dental crowns are metal-free, even for cosmetic dentists doing Smile Makeovers

While many cosmetic dentists claim to be “metal-free” dentists, too, I do not make any such claim.  Why not?  For a few simple reasons…..

1. Gold onlays and gold crowns are still the strongest and longest-lasting ways to fix broken teeth or teeth with cavities currently available, and if that’s what you want, then you want gold.
2. Teeth stained by the antibiotic tetracycline can be so dark that is extremely difficult to  bleach (whiten) them, except with Deep Bleaching (TM), and even porcelain veneers may have difficulty covering such dark tooth stains,  so Porcelain-to-Metal (also known as Porcelain-to-Gold) crowns are sometimes the best choice.
3. Bonding (tooth-colored fillings) usually does not hold up very well if you grind or clench your teeth intensely, as they aren’t hard enough to take that much force, so silver (amalgam) fillings are often a better choice.

Here’s a case from a few years ago where the patient was really unhappy with his old, yellowed, kind of ugly old Porcelain-to-Metal crowns, partially because of the dark grey line at the end of the crowns where the black metal underneath the porcelain was showing as his gums receded.  He only had crowns on the top 6 front teeth (a bad idea), and he wanted all of his teeth bright white, and he’d gotten the crowns initially because of severe Tetracycline staining of his teeth.  They were the darkest teeth I’ve EVER had to treat.  I’ll post something soon about how to create a beautiful smile despite tetracycline-stained teeth, but for this I simply want to show that dental crowns that are used to create a Smile Makeover can be just as beautiful and natural-looking as all-porcelain crowns.

Replacing ugly old porcelain-and-metal crowns with a dark grey line at the gums with porcelain-to-gold crowns that look beautiful, natural, and white - to cover tetracycline-stained teeth.

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