Here’s the final result.  The patient was SO excited to have a tooth again. And look how natural it appears.  The process takes a long time, but a dental implant is still the ideal way to replace missing teeth in many, many situations.

We were not able to save the natural tooth that was originally located in this position.  You can see why here.  Now the implant has been placed and healed, so it’s time to finish with the post and crown.

An oral surgeon recently was able to collect on his malpractice insurance after being sued by a former employee after a dental joke that she did not appreciate. Read about it here.

At the next visit, the healing cap is taken off. The newly made abutment is screwed onto the implant and the crown is placed over it. Here’s the final result. It came out great!!

Here you can see what the area looks like just before the new tooth, or crown, is made. The round metal cap is called a ‘healing cap’ and is placed on the implant by the surgeon when it is ready to be finished.

Here’s another quick example showing a dental implant. The tooth below had to be extracted. It had a bad root and we were not able to save it. This shows the tooth just before it was removed.

We looked at a recent case in which a patient had to lose a non-restorable tooth. Click here for a quick review. This is a similar case. The implant had been previously placed and was now ready to restore, by making a customized post and crown. We’re taking a photo to match the shade of the other teeth, but you can see the ‘healing cap’ that was placed by the surgeon.

So this tooth probably had an ‘original’ crack that continued, slowly, until it needed a root canal. Later it completely fractured.

But here’s another reason the tooth under this crown may have fractured. This patient has eaten very hard, crunchy cereal for many years. She was trying to be ‘good’ and eat healthy food, but the trauma of this hard food over the years may also have contributed to the tooth’s demise.

So what happened here?

The tooth was originally crowned due to fractures/cracking that started because of a large silver filling, which we’ve examined in other posts like this one. The cracks may have continued, slowly, inside the tooth (similar to a crack in a car’s windshield).

When they got to the nerve, the tooth became symptomatic and needed the root canal. But the cracks kept going, and the tooth completely fracture off inside the crown.

The teeth below have small to moderate-sized silver fillings. They were originally filled many years ago (probably 20 or more) and have not been sensitive to hot, cold or biting pressure. You can see there appears to be adequate tooth structure around these fillings to hold them securely. And there is no evidence of cavities or decay around the surface of the filling.