Dental Bridges

Do You Have Missing Teeth?

A den­tal bridge may be part of your treat­ment plan rec­om­mended by Dr. David Zelby.  As a prosth­don­tist he lends a spe­cial­ists view­point to all restora­tive den­tal bridges and restorative dental pro­ce­dures.  We care­fully plan your treat­ment to give you a fully func­tional, com­fort­able and long-lasting solu­tion to miss­ing teeth.

If you’re miss­ing one or more teeth, you may feel dis­com­fort when chew­ing and speak­ing and embarrassed because of your smile. Den­tal bridges can help restore your nat­ural, beau­ti­ful smile. A den­tal bridge is a restora­tion used to replace a miss­ing tooth or teeth. The adja­cent teeth are filed down, and a den­tal bridge is placed on top, sup­port­ing an arti­fi­cial tooth in the mid­dle. This can help fill in a gap where a tooth is miss­ing from decay, age, or trauma. Other alter­na­tives to den­tal bridges are den­tal implants and par­tial dentures.

Den­tal bridges replace miss­ing teeth with arti­fi­cial teeth and lit­er­ally “bridge” the gap where one or more teeth used to be. Den­tal bridges can be made from gold, alloys, porce­lain or a com­bi­na­tion of these mate­ri­als and are attached to sur­round­ing teeth for sup­port. Unlike a remov­able bridge, which you can take out and clean, a den­tist can only remove fixed den­tal bridges.

The gap left from a miss­ing tooth needs to be addressed to avoid the shift­ing of adja­cent teeth. Bridges use the two sur­round­ing teeth to hold up the false tooth, called the pon­tic, above the gum line to act as a replace­ment. Two crowns that are fused to the pon­tic and bonded to the top of the sur­round­ing teeth sup­port the bridge. This requires that the den­tist remove a small part of the enamel from the adja­cent teeth to prop­erly bond the crowns over the top and keep the bridge in place. Bridges are most often made with porce­lain to blend with the patient’s smile cos­met­i­cally. Other alter­na­tives to den­tal bridges are den­tal implants and par­tial den­tures.

Dental Bridge


Anterior Bridge