Digital crown- What is it and how does it work?

With our new Rainbow-Mill Clinic machine, we can now produce natural and functional ceramic indirect restorations (crowns, onlays, inlays) within a day!

The creation and placement of indirect restoration is one of the most commonly performed procedures in dentistry today. Like traditional crowns and onlays, digital crowns and onlays are ideal for teeth which are badly decayed or broken and commonly used as routine finishes for procedures like Root Canal Therapy.

However, anyone who has had a standard crown or onlay done will know that it can be a time consuming process which takes a minumum of 1 week or more for it to complete.

Normally in the case of traditional crowns, impressions are taken and sent off to a dental lab for crown fabrication. It may take a week or two for the lab to receive the impression, make the crown and send it back to us. The waiting time and having a temporary crown in the mouth are the drawbacks of this method.

With Digital crowns/ onlays, we can shorten the entire process significantly. The biggest advantage of digital crown is that it can be designed and milled right here in our clinic. Using the latest CAD/CAM technology and state of art equipment, patients receive a perfect crown/onlay in just one day! In addition to that, the crowns are incredibly accurate as we scan your tooth instead of taking impressions.

So how does a Digital Crown work?

Your dentist will prepare your tooth for a crown as per usual and instead of having you bite down on gooey plasticine like impression materials which are messy and uncomfortable, your tooth will be scanned with our intra oral scanner that takes a 3D image of your tooth, which is then fed into a computer programme. After designing your crown, we will use our milling machine to cut out or “mill” the exact crown that was designed out of a ceramic block. Once milled, the crown is then fitted, polished and bonded to your tooth- all on the same day.

So there you go.. now that you know about Digital crowns that can be milled (cut out) in our own clinic, you can consider giving it a go next time to save an extra visit to the clinic! Talk to your dentist about this if you have more questions or make an appointment to find out more.

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