Fillings, Crowns and Bridges

Most restorative dentistry is a question of how much sound tooth is left. A filling replaces missing structure and relies on what remains to hold everything together. Once enough of the tooth is gone, a filling is being asked to do a job it cannot do, and a crown that wraps the tooth becomes the conversation instead. Reasonable dentists put that line in slightly different places.

Old restorations are their own category. Fillings and crowns do not last forever, and the way they fail is usually quiet — a margin that opens up, decay working underneath, a crack that has been spreading for years. This is a large share of the work adults have done, and none of it feels like anything until it does.

Ask what is being replaced, what it is being replaced with, and how long the office expects the repair to hold up. If a tooth cannot be saved, that is a different discussion, and replacing a missing tooth is its own specialty that we do not cover here.

What this usually involves

• Fillings for decay and small fractures
• Crowns where a tooth has lost too much structure
• Bridges spanning a gap between existing teeth
• Chipped and broken front teeth
• Replacing old restorations that have failed

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