Broken or lost fillings are frequent reasons for visits to our offices.

If old fillings are intact but one or more cusps have fractured leaving a gap in a row of usually smooth teeth, one might get a sore tongue from sharp shards of the remaining tooth.

When caries (decay) is removed, fillings replace the lost tooth structure. Large areas of decay require large fillings, but they do not strengthen the original tooth, meaning the larger the filling the weaker the remaining tooth.

At this point crowns are often recommended, leading to questions about what, exactly, crowns are?

The most direct answer is that they are devices which not only wrap the tooth and protect the cusps from chewing pressures, but also add tremendous strength to any tooth previously weakened by caries and resultant large fillings.

A bridge is simply an artificial replacement for a missing tooth, or teeth, which is fixed or removable and supported by adjacent teeth.