Advantages of the Cerec Crown/ Onlay

Many of you already know that we do one appointment crowns and onlays with the Cerec unit. But you may not know why. It is not to reduce my costs because the equipment is very expensive. We did it because it was in the best interest of patient care. The machine never gets sick, has no emotional issues to affect the work it does and always gives the same perfect work no matter what is going on in the world. So we get a consistent product that requires no time between appointments since there is no temporary involved.

Another reason for having the cerec technology is that we have the flexibility to restore teeth that previously would have required extraction or a root canal due to the small amount of tooth structure remaining. All cerec restorations are bonded and, therefore, do not require a large amount of vertical height of the remaining tooth in order to be bonded. All cemented restorations require taller vertical walls in order to get good adhesion, but with the cerec bonded restoration we only need a small amount of tooth structure to restore the tooth into full function.

On the other end of this line of thinking, we can also conserve a good tooth structure by doing an onlay instead of a crown if the circumstances arise. This option ( onlay) is used when there are 1,2 or 3 good walls of the tooth left. In those cases, we can do 1,2,3, or 4 surface onlays instead of a crown ( which involves all 5 surfaces of the tooth). When we purchased the Cerec machine, we noticed a large decrease in the number of root canals and crowns that we did as well since the cerec crown doesn’t require much tooth structure. With conventional crowns, a root canal would be required in cases where there was an inadequate height of the remaining tooth structure. So in that case, the cost would double. As a result of getting this technology, we were doing a larger number of onlays at a lower cost to the patient. These procedures take longer at the initial appointment, but there is no second appointment or temporary involved. So the patient missed less work and didn’t have to face the possible discomfort of cementing the crown without anesthesia and we didn’t have the problem of finding a suitable second appointment.

Another plus is that the crown design is saved on the computer so that if you would break the crown or lose it if it came off, we could simply mill a new one when you called and have you in a few hours later to put the new crown in place. This could be several years later and still be no problem.

The cerec program has built into it several thousands of types of each tooth so that there are very few teeth it cannot make, so we have the best lab technician in the world at our fingertips, so you get the best product every time and we don’t have to worry about which lab tech we get on a given day.

So whether you have had a crown or onlay the old way or not, you know the difference this technique has to offer. You can call or e-mail our office for more details or answer your questions.