If you’ve found yourself faced with teeth that are broken, decayed, or even lost entirely, there’s no need to feel ashamed – instead, trust your hurting smile in the capable hands of our team
Feel free to browse the services below or just give us a call at 775-465-2388. You can also request an appointment or contact us and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
There are four different choices that you have when it comes to filling a cavity.
1 - Composite FillingsNatural tooth-colored filling, bonds to the tooth to provide added security.
2 - Silver FillingsInexpensive and strong amalgam based filling.
3 - Gold FillingsMore attractive than silver and provide for a better fit.
4 - Porcelain FillingsAlso called inlays; the most attractive and durable of the tooth colored choices.
We use a highly-sensitive precision wand to digitally scan the section of your mouth where a dental restoration will be placed. As the wand scans the area, it builds a virtual model of your mouth on a screen right in front of your eyes. You and your doctor can fine-tune the area until the virtual model represents your mouth exactly.
Once the digital model of the dental restoration area have been finished, Smith Valley Smiles will digitally design a restoration right there on the screen. It will be designed to be fully functional and fit exactly in the area where it needs to be place.
From there, this digital restoration will be sent to a milling machine where a color-matched block of porcelain will be precisely milled into the final restoration. This restoration is NOT a temporary, but rather the same restoration we expect to receive from a dental lab.
The final restoration is test-fitted to the area and any final adjustments are made before securely bonding the restoration to the tooth. You will walk out of our office wearing the final restoration in a single dental visit.
Single appointment dentistry is not too good to be true! Call us at 775-465-2388 or request an appointment to see what CEREC can do for your specific situation.
Our office is unique and we are happy to provide our patients with single-visit inlays and onlays because of our amazing CEREC machine. Usually inlays and onlays require us taking a dental impression of your teeth and sending it to a lab to have your final restoration custom fabricated by highly skilled technicians. The CEREC machine allows the entire process to be done in-house and without us having to take a messy impression. Using CEREC, we will scan your mouth, design a restoration on a computer and finally have our in-house milling machine fabricate the restoration right in front of you.
If you would like to learn more about our same-day dentistry procedures, call us anytime at 775-465-2388 or request an appointment to come in a experience the benefits of receiving a dental restoration in one day.
Because our office can provide a dental crown in a single dental appointment, we do things a little different than other dental offices. We can skip the temporary molds and the time it takes to have a dental lab fabricate your final crown.
1. We start the crown procedure by reducing the overall size of the tooth that's in need of a dental crown. Shaving off existing tooth structure allows for the new crown to fit properly and it also creates a foundation for the new crown to be bonded to.
2. Next, using our state-of-the-art CEramic REConstruction (CEREC) system, we will digitally scan the section of your mouth that has been prepared for the crown. This is done by using a special wand that can be easily positioned in your mouth to ensure an extremely accurate digital representation of the restoration area.
3. We will now be able to see a high-resolution 3D representation of the area and start to design a new crown that will fit perfectly over the prepared tooth. Our patients often love getting to see us create a new tooth for them in real time, right there on the screen.
4. Once the digital representation of the new crown has been created on the computer, we will send it off to our in-house milling machine. We place a block of porcelain that has been color-matched to the shade of your existing tooth into the milling machine and run the program. This amazing machine robotically fabricates a perfect crown restoration that is ready to be placed over the prepared tooth at this time. This crown is the final crown and NOT a temporary crown which means you have just received a new dental crown in a single dental appointment.
If your smile is in need of a makeover, crowns can provide predictable results. Crowns can give an unattractive tooth back its beautiful shape and color. For smaller or worn down teeth, a crown can restore the natural size of the old tooth. A crown can replace either part of or the tooth's entire structure. For procedures requiring only the areas visible from the outside, a veneer may be an alternative option.
With today's advances in dentistry, there are several options when choosing a type of crown:
- Porcelain outer surface with a metal base crown
- Pure porcelain or composite crown
- All metal crown, which is usually gold
They all differ in durability, strength, appearance and cost.
These are very aesthetic, bonded crowns. They are mostly used for front teeth because they are the most natural looking type of crown and are often used in "cosmetic" dentistry.
There are many types, but they all have a common feature - no metal. They can occasionally break, but dental technology has advanced far enough to make them quite strong.
The most common type of crown and has a proven track record. PFM crowns are fairly aesthetic and they look like real teeth. However, the margins or borders may appear dark because PFM crowns have a metal substructure with layers of porcelain fired over the substructure. Porcelain is very hard, much harder than natural enamel and may cause excessive wear of the enamel of opposing teeth. Porcelain may break with extreme biting forces.
The 'gold' standard. Dental gold is about 60% gold alloy which is meant to match the hardness of the enamel of opposing teeth so both wear about evenly, an important trait. Gold does not tarnish or corrode and has some bacterial-inhibiting quality. Gold crowns are strong and will not break. However, gold crowns obviously are not considered aesthetic; they are gold colored. Usually, gold crowns are used for lower back molars because they aren't as noticeable.
Stainless steel crowns, also known as 'silver crowns or caps', are a very common procedure used to restore 'baby teeth' (and occasionally permanent teeth) that have large caries or those that had a pulpotomy (baby root canal). Although most teeth can be filled with a white or silver filling material, stainless steel crowns are by far the most predictable and durable option to fix 'baby teeth' with large caries, large defects, or damaged enamel. This is particularly true in very young children that have caries at a young age, since it is preferred that the 'fixed' teeth last as long as possible.
When you come into our Smith, NV office and talk to our staff, we may feel that your best option to replace a single lost tooth is a bonded bridge. A bonded bridge consists of two parts. The first is a false tooth, called a pontic and the second are 'wings' that support the pontic. The entire structure spans the space vacated by the missing tooth giving you a natural looking replacement without damaging surrounding teeth. Neighboring tooth structures are allowed to remain the same and the wings of the bonded tooth are attached behind the neighboring teeth.
So don't put off that dentist appointment one more day. Pick up the phone and call Smith Valley Smiles at 775-465-2388 and setup an appointment to replace that missing tooth today. You will be so glad you did.
A bridge may be used to replace a single tooth. A bridge consists of both a false tooth, called a pontic and the anchors (abutment crowns) that support the pontic. The entire structure spans the space vacated by the missing tooth.
Neighboring tooth structure is removed, shaping them to receive an anchor crown. An impression is then taken and sent to a dental lab where they fabricate the bridge.
The structure part of the bridge is created with a strong metal alloy that can handle the anticipated stresses.
Tooth-like porcelain is then fused to the structure. Once the bridge is tested for a correct fit, the anchor crowns are cemented to the neighboring teeth.
We have bilingual services available.
775-465-2388