Home / Treatments / Same-day crowns
Restorative dentistry · CEREC on site
If a back tooth has cracked, or an old filling is failing, a same-day crown restores it in one appointment here in Holborn, at Sardinia House. We scan rather than take a putty impression, mill the ceramic on CEREC here in the practice and bond the finished crown within around two to three hours. Nothing temporary, nothing to return for. Guide fees from £1,250.
Guide fee
£1,250 upwards
Appointments
A single visit
Allow
Two to three hours, roughly
With
All our dentists
Who it is for
Back teeth carry most of the chewing load, and a weakened corner can break away without warning. Covering the tooth with a crown spreads that load again, and doing it in the same sitting means the fracture line has no chance to extend.
Some fillings have been patched so often that little original enamel remains around them. Rather than repairing the repair, we cover the whole tooth in bonded ceramic, so the thin walls are supported instead of flexing every time you bite.
Once the nerve has been removed, a molar becomes drier and easier to split. The sooner it is crowned, the better its prospects. At Sardinia House the root canal and the crown can be completed within a single day.
Most crowns still involve two bookings separated by a fortnight and a plastic temporary in between. Here the whole thing happens in one afternoon, and the waiting part can be spent on your laptop in a quiet corner of the practice.
The difference
Every surgery here has a Primescan or iTero™ scanner, and the prepared tooth is captured in a few minutes as a precise digital model. Because the crown is designed on that model, the margins sit cleanly and the bite rarely needs more than a touch.
The CEREC mill sits within the practice, so the ceramic is cut, stained and glazed by your dentist while you wait. The dentist who shaped the tooth checks the colour against your neighbouring teeth and adjusts it before it is fired.
A temporary crown is a compromise: it can lift, let bacteria under the edge and leave the tooth tender for days. Bonding the final ceramic in the same visit means the tooth is sealed once, properly, and stays that way.
Because the ceramic is bonded chemically to enamel and dentine rather than held on by shape alone, we can prepare the tooth more conservatively. More of your own tooth stays, which matters for its strength over the years ahead.
The process
We look at the tooth, scan it and take a digital X-ray if the picture is not yet complete. If a crown is the right choice, we show you the plan on screen and confirm the fee in writing before anything begins.
Local anaesthetic takes a few minutes to work. We then reduce the tooth by the minimum the ceramic needs, removing any old filling and decay, and tidy the margins so the crown can seal against clean, sound tooth.
A second scan records the prepared tooth. On screen we design the crown's shape, contacts and bite, borrowing from the tooth's original form where we can, and you can see the proposal before it goes to the mill.
The crown is cut from one solid block of ceramic on the CEREC mill here, then stained by hand by your dentist and fired to a glaze. This takes the best part of an hour, so bring something to read or a few emails to clear.
We check the fit, the contacts and how it meets the opposing tooth, make any final refinements, then bond the crown in place and polish it. You leave with a finished tooth and no appointment to come back for.
Afterwards
Expect the gum around the crown to feel a little tender for a couple of days, and the bite may need a short while to feel familiar. Clean the crown exactly as you would the tooth it replaces, flossing around its edges, and keep up your routine hygiene visits. If you clench or grind, mention it: a night guard will protect the new ceramic.
Guide fees
Guide fees. Nothing is started until your plan, with every fee written down, is in your hands. See all fees
Good to know
Plan for about two to three hours in total. The preparation and scan take the first part, the milling and glazing fill the middle, while you are free to work or wander round Lincoln's Inn Fields, and the fitting comes at the end.
The guide fee for a CEREC crown here is from £1,250, which is no more than a crown sent out to a laboratory. Once examined, you have the figure in writing, and treatment over £250 can be paid in instalments, subject to a credit check.
It is the same category of material. CEREC mills the crown from a solid, factory-made block of ceramic, so there are no voids or layering flaws, and these crowns have a long clinical track record on back teeth.
On a back tooth, usually not. We pick the shade against your own teeth in daylight and stain the ceramic by hand before glazing. For a front tooth where colour is more demanding, we may instead have the crown built in layers by a master ceramist off site, over two visits. A provisional crown is milled or printed here the same day, so that, wherever we can, you do not leave without a tooth.
Not during the appointment. The tooth is fully anaesthetised, so you feel the vibration of the drill and some pushing, but not pain. Afterwards there can be mild sensitivity to cold for a few days, which settles on its own in most cases.
Yes, and for a back tooth we often prefer it. Dr Spencer Richman completes the root canal under the microscope, and the crown is prepared, milled and bonded in the same visit, so the weakened tooth is protected straight away.
A bonded ceramic crown that is kept clean and checked regularly will usually serve for many years. Grinding, a heavy bite and the condition of the root beneath all affect that, which is why we look at the whole mouth before we start.
Same-day crowns at Sardinia House are milled from a solid block of lithium disilicate or zirconia ceramic, the same materials a laboratory would use. The block is cut by the CEREC mill from your digital scan, then stained and glazed by your dentist to match the neighbouring teeth before it is bonded in.
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