What are the benefits of CEREC?

There are several advantages to having treatment with CEREC over conventional, laboratory-made restorations:

Everything is carried out in a single visit – you only need to visit the dentist once – take one day away from your work or life to have the procedure – instead of the usual two or three visits.

Only one set of local anaesthetic injections – since the entire procedure can be carried out within the hour, you only need to have one lot of injections.

Your dentist is in complete control of the final result – since the crown or veneer is designed and fabricated from start to finish by your dentist, he/she has total control over how it will look and fit, whereas a crown made in a laboratory is under the control of the technician who hasn’t even seen the patient.

No temporary restorations – if you have lab-made veneers, you would require temporary veneers during the wait for your new teeth. These have been known to fall off and cause problems, which is a step that is omitted with CEREC restorations.

Why we don’t use Amalgam (silver) Fillings

Silver fillings contain mercury. They add no strength to the tooth and teeth eventually crack around them. They have been in use for over 150 years and although some experts believe the amount of mercury released is harmful; we at The Courtyard Clinic would not now have this material in our own teeth or in our family’s teeth.

Exam and Preparation

First, we examine the tooth and determine the appropriate treatment. It could be a simple filling, or a full crown, depending on how much healthy tooth structure is remaining and our clinical judgement. Next, we administer a local anaesthetic and prepare your tooth for the restoration, removing decayed and weakened tooth tissue. This preparation is just as we would do for many other restorative techniques.

Optical Impression

We then take an ‘optical impression’ or scan of the prepared tooth. Instead of filling a tray with impression material that you must bite into and hold in your mouth until it hardens, we coat the tooth with a non-toxic, tasteless powder. A camera is then used to take a digital picture of your tooth. This whole optical impression process takes only a few minutes.

No Temporaries

While you relax with a coffee in the lounge, the CEREC 3D software takes the digital picture and converts it into a 3-dimensional virtual model on the computer screen. We then use our dental expertise to design the restoration using the CEREC 3D computer program. Within a few minutes, the restoration design data is sent to a separate milling machine. A ceramic block that matches your tooth shade is placed in the milling machine.

About 10 – 20 minutes later, your all-ceramic, tooth-coloured restoration is finished and ready to bond in place. Finally we try the restoration in your mouth to ensure proper fit and bite. The restoration is then polished or glazed and bonded to the prepared tooth. Your tooth is restored with no “temporary” or return trip necessary. All of this is done in a single appointment!

What is CEREC?

• Chairside: The technology is in the dental operatory and used while you are in the chair.
• Economical: The procedure is economical for both dentist and patient.
• Restorations: The procedure restores your tooth to its natural beauty, function, and strength.
• Esthetic: The restorations are metal-free and tooth-coloured.
• Ceramic: High-strength ceramics are used that are close in composition to your natural tooth structure.

The state of the art CEREC system was developed in 1985 at the University of Zurich in Switzerland by a dentist, Dr. Werner H. Moermann, and an electrical engineer, Dr. Markus Brandistini.