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Can Dental Crowns Closely Match My Existing Teeth Color and Shape?

Posted in Dental Crowns
Posted on May 12, 2023 by Dr. Gerald Marlin

Hawkins 021909

Hawkins S 03 072908 beforeWhen restoring your smile with dental crowns, it is natural to wonder if these tooth restorations can closely match your existing teeth color and shape. After all, crowns may be visible enough that others can see them. In some cases, they take front and center stage in your smile.

So, can dental crowns accurately match your natural tooth color and shape? Here is how these restorations can flawlessly match your natural smile and how Elite Prosthetic Dentistry fabricates the highest quality dental crowns for your tooth restoration.

Our Dental Crowns Are Custom-Made and Hand Fabricated in Our In-House Lab

Hawkins S 22 021909 afterElite has an in-house lab where experienced technicians work directly with Dr. Marlin, Dr. Talmazov, and our patients to custom-fabricate crowns that will seamlessly match the patient’s natural teeth.

Our in-house lab gives us maximum control over the end result. We take precise measurements to produce crowns that match the size and shape of your surrounding natural teeth or restorations.

Unlike many practices, we never send measurements for crowns to be made by a commercial lab, or worse, use milled crowns made from stock images.

Although third-party fabricated crowns may come close to the color of your teeth, they have a high rate of error and do not allow for the nuances in your smile color and shape that are best matched with an in-person team [1].

Internal Shading for Ideal Color and Translucency Results

Instead of just surface staining your dental crown as a commercial lab will do, Elite  custom shades each crown using an internal shading technique. The crown is then overlayed with translucent enamel porcelains in our exclusive process to ensure the tooth looks real and has a three-dimensional shading that will make it indistinguishable from your natural teeth, once it is custom stained to personalize it (see example above).

Our custom translucency process allows us to avoid crowns that do not account for the natural variations in teeth. These commercial crowns can look monochromatic, opaque, or fake, which can impact not just your smile but your overall appearance and impression [3].

Ensuring a Perfect Fit and Natural Shape

Finally, The fit of your dental crown must be as tight as possible to ensure a natural bite. At Elite, we take high-quality impressions and customize the crown by adjusting contacts and shaping them to fit seamlessly with the gum tissue.

We also take X-rays after the crown placement to check the fit before performing any kind of bite adjustment. We never cut corners when creating or installing dental crowns because we are dedicated to the “pursuit of excellence” in all of our treatment regimens. Patients come to us with an ill-fitting crown or to correct its bite which is causing jaw pain or discomfort [2].

Our in-house laboratory gives us complete control of the aesthetics and fit of the crowns we deliver to our patients. Not only does this result in better patient comfort and satisfaction, but it also eliminates the need for patients to return to the office multiple times for multiple crown adjustments.

Are Dental Crowns an Option for Restoring Your Smile?

If you are considering dental crowns to restore your smile, contact Elite Prosthetic Dentistry for a consultation. Our advanced digital technology, highly trained and experienced technicians, and decades of experience help us ensure that your crowns are natural-looking, beautiful, and durable for decades of smiling.

Sources:

  1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5793929/ 
  2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4541334/
  3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14620121/

 

Dr. Gerald Marlin
Dr. Gerald Marlin has been Recognized as a Washingtonian ‘Top Dentist’ for over 20 Consecutive Years by His Peers, as recently acknowledged in the Washingtonian “Hall of Fame 2024”.

Through this commitment, Dr. Marlin provides his patients with long-lasting (35 years vs. the national average of 7-10 years) aesthetic restorations so that they have virtually no future problems.

As such, he is a leading specialist in dental implants, cosmetic dentistry, sedation dentistry , and restorative dentistry  in the Bethesda–Chevy Chase, Northern Virginia, and Washington DC Metro Area. He has inserted and restored over 3,600 dental implants.