How Long Do Crowns, Veneers and Bridges Last
by Cosmetic Dentistry Flower Mound
Posted on 23-12-2022 02:17 am
How Long Do Crowns, Veneers and Bridges Last?
According to the CDC, 120 million Americans are missing at least one tooth in their mouth and about 35 million Americans are missing all teeth in one or both jaws. This is a pretty substantive number. There's a relationship between a healthy body and a healthy mouth and that's very real. And when people are missing teeth they end up getting restored, oftentimes with either tooth-supported restorations or implant-supported restorations. Virtually on any procedure in medicine, you're replacing a knee or hip, you look up the current clinical practice guidelines.
That gives you a template, a roadmap. We needed well-defined guidelines as a profession simply because we had had a lot of antidotal stories about what you should look for and how often you should examine patients and no real set criteria. In reviewing the evidence in the literature, we read over 5,000 articles for each of the two systematic reviews and that boiled down to clinical practice guidelines that are very clear and simple and a person doesn't have to read all those articles if they follow the clinical practice guidelines.
The effort to develop the clinical practice guidelines was led by a prosthodontist. We had input from the ADA and we had input from dental hygiene, and we had input from general dentists. There are eight tips to take care of your restored teeth.
- Obtaining a professional dental exam at least every six months.
- To follow the dentist's recommended at-home maintenance protocols specific to your situation.
- Brush your teeth with fluoride-containing toothpaste twice a day. The scientific data indicates this even for implant-supported restorations.
- Floss at least once daily.
- Wear a night guard if recommended by your dentist.
- Use a mouthwash recommended by your dentist specific to your situation.
- Do not smoke or chew tobacco.
- Do not consume food with high sugar in them which are in general bad for your health.
People that follow maintenance programs generally do very well. When a person is not in a maintenance program they have a 90 percent increased chance of losing their implant over 15 years. Today was the first I had seen a placard with the guidelines.
They were pretty much standard practice, things that I've been accustomed to doing for a long time. Well, I'm much more religious in terms of tending to things like daily brushings, and I use a prescription oral rinse.
The biggest takeaway for patients from the clinical practice guidelines is they need to be in an active partnership with their healthcare provider. If you put the restoration I take you on a table it lasts forever but we all know that the mouth is a very dynamic place and how we care for the restorations that are made is going to make a significant difference in their longevity. When you go on a commercial plane you see the pilot using a checklist.
Clinical practice guidelines are kind of like that checklist. Even though that pilot has flown that plane, taken off ten thousand times by using that checklist, it assures a more predictable result.
We have received an overwhelming response so far. The clinical practice guidelines were simultaneously copublished in four different scientific journals which have a wide reach in the community.
I'll use these clinical practice guidelines with allied members of the healthcare field, you know the hygienists, the assistants, the dental students that are training to become dentists, in a way so that they're sensitized to the needs of patients. This guideline now will help future researchers to use this as a benchmark and then we will revise these guidelines as further scientific evidence becomes available and becomes mainstream.
The value of these guidelines comes in the ability to standardize the care for our patients but also it's something that we can refer to so that there's confidence when we're talking to a patient 'hey, this is what works for you, you've certainly put a significant investment into your dental treatment, this is how we're going to make it last for you. I hope that I can keep a good healthy set of teeth going so that I don't have to worry about eating a good hard apple or chomping on an ear of corn.