Hi, this is Dr. Antolak from thegentledentist.com. We’re in Shelby Township, Michigan. (586)247-3500 is our phone number. Today I want to talk to you about dental crowns and specifically cosmetic all porcelain dental crowns verses porcelain fused metal crowns.  When you look at somebody in the front and they’re smiling and you see a gray line around the edge of the gums, it’s not so sight, it’s kind of unsightly and the reason why that is because porcelain crowns allow light to show through and what you’re looking at, the grayness at the gum line or, a dark line is a porcelain infused development.

Now, porcelain fused to metal crowns were the standard years ago. But nowadays, with no new current technologies, we’re mostly doing actually all porcelain crowns. Not only for the cosmetic benefits of having a beautiful smile with, with cosmetic with all porcelain. But also because they now are stronger than they ever have been. What I’d like to do is just demonstrate to you a couple things. I have here a light and then that light is showing.  If you can see that, it’s showing through a porcelain fused to gold crown. This is a porcelain fused to gold crown and there is actually porcelain that’s baked on the outside on the outside of a tooth and then there is gold that’s ore metal that’s on the inside and that does give it the strength it needs. Now, the problem is, is that they actually and the actual teeth, and the actual teeth allow light to show straight through them. So for example, on this all porcelain one that I have you and see that there is light that is allowed to emit right through that and when light is allowed to be emitted right through the tooth, what it does is give it a natural appearance, just like a natural tooth. A natural tooth there is no metal in it of course, and it allows light to penetrate through it, just like I demonstrated to you with the all porcelain ones. The reason why it looks dark underneath it is it may have a band of metal that’s at the gum line but also

There’s no light allowed to be emitted to the root of the tooth. And so you’re basically looking at a shadow that’s coming into the root structure of the tooth.

Now many, many times I have patients who have come in and asked me, why is my gum line looks so dark there at the, at the top and so when I smile, I don’t like when I smile because I see how that looks and, and the tooth looks a little unnatural, because the naturalness of it comes from the fact that it’s level and we have to, they have to put an opaquer on there like a real whitener that blacks out the metal look from the porcelain. And then they have to make it look natural. So rather than lighting emitting through the tooth on a natural tooth or an all porcelain crown.

Like it’s trapped inside and when you’re looking at a porcelain crown.  Light only goes up to that one specific spot where the crown is, where the opaquer is, and light reflects back off of it. That’s what not, does, that’s what gives it the unnatural look to a porcelain, I mean a porcelain to metal crown.

So, if you’d like more clarification on that, or if you don’t like the way that your smile is, or if you have issues that you have at the gum line that seem to be really an irritant. Or, you know, you may have had someone who’s noticed that. Or you just don’t feel comfortable smiling, please give us a call, you know? We’ll provide for you a free consultation, just to take a look and see what you have going on there with your teeth and if it’s a crown what we can do to change that and make teeth look beautiful again. Thank you and this is Doctor Antolak from TheGentleDentist.com.

Have a blessed day.