Office Hours

M-Th 9:00-5:00

Fr 9:00-2:00

All-Ceramic Bridges

In this day and age it seems absurd to still be placing metal restorative materials in people’s mouths. Yet there are still offices today (many of them pediatric offices) that fill children’s teeth with mercury and place metal crowns in adult’s mouths. They will steadfastly defend the use of these materials even though many countries around the world have made their use illegal when used on children and pregnant mothers. At Southern Smiles we feel that not only is that type of dentistry obsolete, it is also dangerous to the patients. Mercury is one of the single most toxic substances to the human nervous system.. Since most of the harmful mercury exposure occurs during the placement and removal of these fillings, we will not eliminate old worn out mercury fillings without properly protecting our patients from exposure to mercury vapors. While we do not insist on removal of every mercury filling from our patients’ mouths, we do watch them very closely as they are a primary cause of fractured teeth. We are unwilling to jeopardize the welfare of are patients by placing these types of materials when there are safer, more esthetic alternatives. That being said, the technique sensitivity of placing non-metal restorations makes the proper training and strict adherence to the placement protocols a must for a successful outcome. If you read the protocol for placing any bonded restoration, step one is to place a dental dam. I do not believe that there is another office in the area that does this required step; except Southern Smiles.

That same philosophy goes for our crowns and bridges. The typical crown or bridge is a metal substructure that is covered with porcelain. Not only are there frequently tissue responses to these metals, these are non precious alloys that can when in proximity to other metals set up an electrical field inside your mouth. All-porcelain crowns and bridges are available today that are strong, safe and beautiful. That is the type of restoration that we prefer to place.

Office Phone:

843-686-5526