Tag Archives: crown

I Love Gold Crowns + Photos

I think one of the fun things to do in dental school is making a gold crown.  I’ll tell you why – as a student you have the control!  After the prep and impression are taken you can decide when to pour up the models, mount them, wax the tooth and cast it.  There are some steps in between to get signed off by faculty, but ultimately the control is in the students hands.  There is no lab slip, no lab time, and no chance for a potential mess up by the lab.  I have recently been working on a gold crown for #18.  Everything has gone very smooth and I am pleased with the outcome.  When a gold crown is treatment planned you will want to take the following steps (this is mostly for Temple Dental students).

1.  The patient has to pay AT LEAST half of the cost of the crown.  At Temple we charge $350.00 which is a steal!  If the patient can pay in full then get them to pay up front, it makes life easier.

2. After they paid, go and get an approval form and fill it out.  Take the approval form to a clinical coordinator so they can stamp it.  After it is stamped, go through the checklist on the form and make sure you have everything done in the chart.  You have to make sure the recall is done, signatures are up to date, etc.

3. Put the form in the chart and submit it to the AEGD window for approval.  This takes 24 hours.  After this time period the chart can be found back in central records.  Go pick the chart up and see if your plan is approved.

4. If you are approved you can get your patient in and start treatment. If not, fix what you are missing and resubmit your form.

Here is the crown I have been working on for the last few weeks (total of 3 appointments for a parapost and composite buildup and prep and impression).  I plan to cement it within the next week.

gold crown on die in articulator

shiny!

gold crown on die in articulator

gold crown on die in articulator

gold crown on die in articulator

gold crown on die in articulator

gold crown on die margins

gold crown on die

Othe reasons to like gold crowns:

Typically there are less appointments because there is not a coping try-in step before porcelain.  The margins always come out better (at least for me).  Gold is simply awesome to look at.

Hope you enjoy the case!

P.S.  I tried to get the bridge, but the patient just wanted to get the crown done. FYI!

Porcelain Fused to Metal Crowns & Photos

***Update (Feb 28, 2009): Porcelain Fused to Metal Crown Part II
Today I had the goal of fast tracking someone through the fixed clinic.  The graduate periodontology clinic picked this patient up right when we were done with his comprehensive cleaning and stalled my treatment by TWO MONTHS!  The service they were trying to treatment plan him for was needed but he is on government aid and they would never approve the treatment grad perio wanted to do.  Anyway, to avoid becoming too bitter in this post, lets just say that I was motivated to get this patients treatment done as quickly as possible so no more delays can get in the way.  His treatment plan is as follows:

1) Extract all remaining maxillary molars
2) Prophy, Flouride, OHI
3) PFM noble metal #22, 23
4) Mandibular RPD, Maxillary FPD
Here is the FMX series:
modified FMX [8]

The extractions were completed, the prophy and scaling was completed and today we started on both of his crowns. I picked a good row instructor in the fixed department so I could get as much as possible done today.  One thing I like about Temple – and I am not sure if it is like this at other schools – if you can get the treatment done in the allotted time then you are given the green flag to do it.  So here are the crown preps I was able to do today.  Remember that everything went smoothly during this appointment and so far this is not common for me. I had some luck on my side today and was happy with the results.  Here is a before shot:

before

I took a pre-impression with impergum (hence the purple on the lips).

Here are my preps, a few from the facial, occlusal and a shot with packed cord:
preps occlusal view

preps occlusal view

facial view of preps

occlusal view of pcked cord

After the preps were done I made the temporaries using Integrity. I had never used Integrity before and I really liked it. I got it from a vendor who got my name from a Temple Dental graduate. Thanks Dr. Beth! The integrity was fairly easy to work with, set quickly, didn’t shrink, and the color (A2) was a great match. The margins were easy to read and easy to trim. Check out the final product:

provisional made

I was able to do all this and get my final impression in one clinic session. I was pretty amazed with how smoothly everything went. Two preps, two provisionals, an impression of the final preps and some photographs all in 3 hours. I know that is nowhere near private practice status – but remember this is dental school and these were my 3rd and 4th crowns (if you remember I finished a bridge not too long ago).

Gold Crown Videos

It helps to see the process before you do it for the first time. Make sure to add BORAX (I didn’t add any in the video and it still turned out, but better safe than sorry)

Enjoy!

Gold Crown Part I

Gold Crown Part II