Dental Bridges

If you're missing a tooth, it's important to replace it and fill in that gap! With the help of a dental bridge, we're able to fill in that space and protect your smile. If you leave the gap, your surrounding teeth will shift to try and fill in that space. The structure and alignment of your teeth are extremely important to overall dental and oral health and when that changes, your health is at risk. Your bite changes as your teeth begin to shift, which can cause several dental issues much sooner than you think, and the missing tooth will be the least of your worries.

 

Our Kingman dentists alleviate this issue with dental bridges. By using the two surrounding teeth as anchors, the false tooth is held in place and supports your smile as a whole. Typically, porcelain crowns are placed over the surrounding anchor teeth and the pontic (the false tooth) is fused between them.

 

Types of Dental Bridges

• Traditional Fixed Bridge: This is the most common type of dental bridge utilized in our office. As described previously, porcelain crowns are placed over the surrounding teeth and used as anchors to hold the false tooth in place. Your pontic is typically made of either porcelain fused to metal or ceramics.

• Cantilever Bridge: This type of bridge is used when teeth are present on only one side of the gap. These are used in areas of your mouth that doesn't experience an intense chewing load, such as your front teeth.

• Resin-Bonded Bridge: In a resin-bonded bridge, we take metal bands that are bonded to the surrounding teeth with resin and used to hold the false tooth in place. This is also commonly used in areas that undergo less stress from chewing, like your front teeth.

 

How Dental Bridges are Placed

A minimum of two visits are required for placing a dental bridge. During your first visit, there are three important steps completed. Dr. Riches will prepare your surrounding teeth to be fitted with the supportive crown. Filing down of the tooth may be necessary to ensure the crown properly and comfortably fits over it.

 

After the filing preparation, we take an impression of your teeth that's sent to our laboratory to efficiently prepare the bridge and crown. Finally, Dr. Riche will fit your teeth with a temporary bridge to protect your smile while your final, personalized bridge is being created.

 

Once the custom bridge is made and shipped, we'll remove the temporary bridge and fit and adjust the new bridge. You may need multiple visits to ensure the bridge is comfortable, that it properly fits, and have one of our Kingman dentists check and adjust the bridge when necessary.

 

To learn more, simply give our office a call at (928) 757-1707 and schedule your consultation with our team today!