I am going to a new dentist after a transfer to another city. I had to go to the first one who could fit me in because I had a crown break on a front tooth. Dr. —– from Maine is recommending I get a CEREC crown. He also said if I was interested in a smile makeover he could make CEREC veneers too. I don’t know anything about this dentist. How do I know if this is a good idea?
Lorraine
Dear Lorraine,
CEREC Crowns are milled from a single block of porcelain
I’m very glad you wrote. I’m going to save you from a potential disaster here. The first warning bell which sounded out to me was his suggesting a CEREC crown for your front tooth. While CEREC crowns are quite convenient, they’re more useful on back teeth because they’re milled from a single block of porcelain. That means the color will be completely uniform.
If you looked at your teeth in a mirror closely, you’d notice there are subtle varieties in the translucency, and therefore the shading, of the tooth. To get that with a dental crown requires your dentist does this the traditional way with an all-porcelain crown, where they can pull from several blocks of porcelain with varieties of color.
Because Dr. —- doesn’t seem to understand that, it makes me think he’s not a skilled cosmetic dentist.
Who Should Create Your CEREC Restorations?
I decided to do some research on the dentist you mentioned just to see if my hunch was correct. Here’s what I found. This dentist has a website, but it’s not that great. There’s no smile gallery where you can see results of the work he’s done. Next, I checked his Yelp! and Google Reviews. No reviews, which means no one feels passionate enough about his work (good or bad) to bother writing a review.
So, I took the additional step of researching some of the more well-respected schools which teach cosmetic dentistry, specifically in creating beautiful smile makeovers. He doesn’t seem to have attended any of them, which backs up my gut feeling.
Let’s say you go through with this and go ahead with the smile makeover, but end up hating it. Will he reimburse you? There’s no recourse if he doesn’t Most excellent cosmetic dentists have a beautiful smile guarantee but they’re not required to.
Your best bet is to go to a different dentist for both the crown and a smile makeover if that’s really something you’re interested in.
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