Dental Bridge

A dental bridge is basically used when a patient is missing a single tooth and doesn't want have a dental implant placed. So they have this space and now they want to fill it not using an implant. So the back tooth and the front tooth have to be prepared, and then a bridge is made. And that bridge is basically like a single crown that gets cemented in and is non-removable. The only difference between the bridge and the single crown is that the single crown is one tooth, where the bridge is usually two or more teeth. So two or more teeth have to be prepared, and then those are used as the foundation for the bridge that gets cemented in. The patient gets anesthetized or numbed up and once they're numb, the tooth is prepared, meaning about 2 or 3 millimeters of tooth structure is removed from the whole circumference of the tooth. Once the tooth is prepared, then an impression or a mold is taken or a digital image, depending on which technique we're going to use, and then using that image or that impression, the bridge is fabricated. And once the bridge is fabricated, it's then returned and cemented into the patient's mouth permanently and the patient can't remove it. Dental bridges generally do not impact speech if they are fabricated properly, if they fit within the form and function of the mouth, within the function of the lips and the tongue. As long as it's not too long, as long as it's not too bulky, dental bridges should not interfere with speech at all.