Why Dental Bridges?

Missing teeth can often affect a person’s ability to eat properly, smile confidently and can even affect speech!

Bridges are crafted carefully to masterfully give the appearance of a tooth emerging from the gum, when in reality it is a false tooth supported on one or both sides of the space.

At Care Dental Platinum, we are interested in giving preventive treatment, first and foremost, but in the event you have a gap to be filled, we are experts in finding the right treatment which fits naturally with the rest of the denture.

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How do dental bridges work and which one is right for me?

There are many different bridge designs and our dentists will thoroughly discuss each option with you to help you choose the one that’s right for you. Your dentist will work closely with the ceramist to ensure the optimal shade, shape and set up to provide you with a long lasting, great-looking and fully functioning bridge.

Different types of bridge include:

  • Traditional Fixed Dental Bridge: this is when the supporting teeth are crowned and the synthetic tooth is fused in between them.  This is an excellent design when the abutment teeth need to be reinforced too, or there is a space of more than one missing tooth.
  • Cantilever Dental Bridge: it may seem counter-intuitive, but recent evidence has shown that when only one tooth is missing, one supporting tooth (as opposed to two, one on either side of the space) results in a longer lasting bridge, which is less likely to cause problems in the future.  This bridge design of only one abutment tooth also means less risk of damaging neighbouring teeth unnecessarily.
  • Resin Bonded Dental Bridges: also known as Maryland Dental Bridge or ‘Sticky’ Bridge. This bridge design was developed to avoid unnecessary damage to the healthy teeth required to be abutments for a false tooth, in order to fill a gap.  The false tooth is bonded to a metal or porcelain ‘wing’, which is attached to the back or non-visible surface of the neighbouring supporting tooth. This often requires minimal or no preparation of tooth structure and therefore maintains the health of the remaining teeth.
  • Implant Supported Dental bridges: these bridges are supported by dental implants instead of teeth.  A dental implant is a metal screw implanted in the jaw that acts as a tooth root.  Implants allow very large spaces where there are missing teeth to be replaced with teeth again.  Even a jaw with no teeth can support dental bridges if multiple implants are placed.