Tooth decay causes severe damage to your teeth and affects your oral health. Thus, cosmetic dentists focus on potential restoration techniques, namely inlays and overlays. With dental overlays, your cosmetic dentist tends to fill cavities and cover a significant portion of your biting surface. A proper dental overlay helps you enhance the appearance of your teeth, thereby effectively transforming your smile. Here’s everything you need to know about dental overlays.
What Are Dental Overlays?
Dental overlays’ primary purpose is to enhance your teeth’ appearance. Dental overlays are also known as partial crowns, which are indirect restorations made from impressions of damaged teeth. Once made, they are cemented to get a more durable solution than dental fillings. It gets fit over the biting surface of your tooth, which is made of a solid piece of porcelain, composite, sometimes resin or gold. Dentists mainly use this restoration technique to fix a damaged decayed tooth. It helps you rebuild your cusp portions, which are pointed edges on the chewing surface of your teeth.
What Are Dental Overlays Made Of?
Dental overlays are made of varied materials, which are listed below:
1. Gold: Because of its immense strength, gold is considered the most preferred material for dental overlays. It helps protect your weaned teeth from cusps caused by dental cavities. Gold overlays are the most effective when cavity-filling fractures repeatedly.
2. Ceramic or porcelain: These overlays create tooth-colored restorations that improve the functionality of natural teeth. Porcelain dental overlays are stain-resistant and less prone to fracture than traditional fillings.
3. Composite resin: It’s the best alternative to gold or ceramic dental overlays. Composite overlays are most effective for filling cavities that are often too large for traditional dental fillings.
When Do You Need Dental Overlays?
Dental overlays fix tooth problems, which are not enough to require a crown or more than just a filling. There are certain situations when you need dental overlays. For instance, dental filling only sometimes gives you the best solution if you have cavities. Instead, the dental filling tends to leave the tooth weaker. However, dental overlays make your tooth structure strong effectively. On the other hand, for rebuilding your tooth structure, dental overlays offer excellent results. It covers the biting surface of your tooth, allows you to match the color of your other teeth, and looks like natural teeth.
Is Dental Overlay Better Than A Crown?
Dental overlays are preferred in comparison to dental crowns. It’s because dental overlays are a less aggressive tooth restoration technique. However, dental crowns are the best solution for you if you have a severely damaged tooth or are suffering from tooth decay. This is because dental overlays tend to cover only the damaged part, which might need more if you have decayed teeth. Whereas with dental crowns, you can completely cover the damaged area from further plaque accumulation.
How Long Do Dental Overlays Last?
Overlays are similar to other dental restorations but sometimes require replacement. In general, dental overlays tend to last for over 10-15 years. It’s, however, dependent on how much you can maintain your oral health.
Benefits Of Dental Overlays
Firstly, dental overlays can provide additional strength to your affected tooth. It allows you to be able to withstand chewing pressure. Another benefit of dental overlays is that they are feasible for long-term investment as they can stay for a longer time. However, if you can maintain them effectively, your dental overlays will remain for more than ten years. Apart from this, dental overlays tend to require fewer appointments and can restore your failed dental filling effectively. Lastly, dental overlays are way more cost-effective than dental crowns and preferable to other dental appliances in restoring damaged teeth.
The Bottom Line
Tooth decay and damage are serious concerns that require urgent attention. If left untreated, it damages your oral health badly. Don’t let that happen to you, and get dental overlays today. Schedule an appointment with your cosmetic dentist and get the type of dental overlay that best suits your oral health.
