CEREC: Making a Dentist Appointment Less Stressful

CEREC, also known as Chairside Economical Restoration of Esthetic Ceramics or is even known as CEramic REConstruction, is a product that dentists use to help repair dental necessities like crowns, veneers, onlays, and inlays. The great thing about this technology is that it makes it so that instead of having to come multiple times to have everything fixed up, this technology makes it so that in one visit everything is completely fixed.

So how does that happen? Well CEREC is advanced technology that lets the dentist create 3D photographs of the ceramic parts of the teeth. Because of this and other computer assisted technologies, the dentists are able to complete the treatments in just one appointment instead of multiple, like they had to do with older technologies.

With older technologies, usually for the first visit the patient had get a needle full of anesthesia. Then there tooth or teeth would need to be prepared so that the dentist could take an impression of their tooth or teeth. After that, they would then put a temporary fix on the tooth itself, to keep the ceramic from falling off or degrading more. Then a couple of weeks later, after the impression was processed and a new cap fitted for your tooth or teeth, the patient would come back, again get injected with anesthesia, and then have the temporary fix taken off and the permanent fix put on their tooth or teeth.

So with CEREC, all of it gets finished in just one appointment. And more than that, because the materials used with this kind of treatment are more akin to a tooth's properties than another substance like metal, it will hopefully last longer. For instance, because the materials are more similar to the tooth itself, when eating hot or cold food, the ceramic will expand or shrink along with the tooth itself, so there will be less conflict there. Over time, conflict in expanding or contracting could cause the crown, veneer, onlay, or inlay to degrade. Then the patient would need a completely new one and would have to go through the lengthy process of fixing everything again.

Also, CEREC enables the dentist to save as much of the healthy tooth as possible because the ceramic is bonded to the tooth itself. This means that the dentist can leave a person with as much healthy and stable original tooth as possible, while also strengthening the tooth and making it more visually appealing.

I know that when I go and get my teeth fixed, I would much rather only have one appointment. Having two appointments just doubles my uncomfortable and anxiety levels. Plus I hate getting anesthesia. So only having to go through one appointment relaxes me. Plus, I think that ceramic teeth improvements are much more visually appealing than metal ones. And the great part is, the ceramic ones aren't only more visually appealing, but also more durable and last longer than the metal ones because the materials more closely match my own teeth.