Restorative Dentistry Erie, PA

Gum disease is a chronic infection of the area around your teeth. It can lead not just to lost teeth, but can contribute to deadly health problems, including pneumonia, dementia, and heart disease. See our general and preventive dentistry page to learn more.

Full mouth reconstruction is a comprehensive combination of procedures custom-designed to restore your teeth after widespread damage. It can be used to help people who experience extensive wear from TMJ, eating disorders, or dental trauma.

We’ll describe other treatments in more detail below.

Dental fillings are the normal treatment for cavities. Cavities are small holes in your teeth that occur when oral bacteria eat food in your mouth–especially carbohydrates like sugar–and excrete acid. Your teeth are strong, but they’re vulnerable to acid attack. When cavities form, they can trap food and shelter bacteria, leading to more concentrated acid, accelerating decay. By filling in the holes, you can protect your teeth from future damage.

The most common filling materials are metal amalgam and composite. Metal amalgam is the traditional silver filling material. It’s inexpensive and durable.

Composite fillings are inexpensive and attractive, but they’re less durable. They work great for small cavities but aren’t a good choice for large cavities. If you want an attractive filling for large cavities, you will want a ceramic inlay or onlay.

Inlays and onlays are ceramic fillings. These custom-crafted fillings use advanced ceramics to repair cavities. These fillings are the most attractive available–they can look just like natural tooth enamel. Inlays and onlays are also durable. They are made of ceramic that might be stronger than your natural tooth enamel. When properly placed, these can be the longest-lasting fillings available.

Dental crowns are sheaths that fit over your teeth to protect and restore their function. We’ll use a dental crown to restore a tooth that’s badly damaged because of:

• Decay
• Cracking
• Failed fillings
• Root canal therapy

Dental crowns are a great way to save a badly damaged tooth. You might think a tooth can’t be saved, but a dental crown can give your tooth new life in most cases. Often, a dental crown can make your tooth look new, too.

There are three common types of dental crowns:

• Metal
• Porcelain fused to metal (PFM)
• Ceramic

Metal crowns are traditional and can be effective, but these days, most people don’t like their look. PFM crowns combine the durability of metal crowns with the attractiveness of ceramics. Full ceramic crowns are attractive and highly durable, thanks to modern advances in ceramic technology. They can look like natural teeth and can last for decades.

A dental bridge is a traditional method for replacing a lost tooth. In the traditional dental bridge, a replacement tooth called a pontic, is supported by dental crowns over adjacent natural teeth. This can create a long-lasting functional tooth replacement. It’s fully fixed in your mouth, and you can bite and chew normally. However, we now only use dental bridges in limited situations, where you have a missing tooth surrounded by teeth healthy enough to support it.

Implant bridges are a modern alternative. Using dental implants, we can support any number of replacement teeth, including a full arch of teeth.

Dental implants are artificial tooth roots. Normally made of titanium, we place these in your jawbone, which integrates with the bone to fix it permanently. We mean permanently: with proper care, dental implants can last a lifetime–some implants last 50 years or more.

These artificial tooth roots can support dental restorations that give you attractive and functional replacement teeth. With dental implants, we can replace any number of teeth, from a single tooth to an entire arch of teeth.

All-on-X is an approach that uses a relatively small number of dental implants to replace a full arch of teeth. We can use as few as four dental implants to give you a full set of new teeth on your mouth’s top or bottom arch. You can get a full set of replacement teeth with just eight dental implants.

All-on-X can also work quickly. Many people can enter the oral surgeon’s office with damaged teeth and leave with a new set of replacement teeth that day.

Dentures are a traditional tooth replacement method using removable replacement teeth. With partial dentures, you can replace less than a full arch of teeth by using your natural teeth for support.

A full denture replaces an entire arch of teeth. Since no natural teeth support the replacement, full dentures utilize suction to hold them in place.

Although dentures are inexpensive and attractive, they do not function like natural teeth, and many people with dentures report poor quality of life.

Do you have decayed, worn, or otherwise damaged teeth? Don’t live with unattractive and nonfunctional teeth- they will get worse over time. Let restorative dentist Dr. Tucker help you get restorations to repair or replace your natural teeth.

Please call Tucker Dental Excellence in Erie, PA at (814) 836-7777 to restore your teeth.