Implant Crown Doesn’t Match

Posted by Sophia Kai

I have a dental implant on a front tooth and my dentist can’t get it to match. He’s redone it three times and is getting angry with me. He said the problem is my color is between A1 and A2 and told me I should be grateful he was able to get it close. He also said if I kept messing with it, the implant will fail. I don’t want to cause it to fail but I keep hoping it can match my other teeth. I felt like it matched better when I had the temporary flipper. What do I do? Can I whiten just that crown a little?

Kelly

Dear Kelly,

Unfortunately, teeth whitening will only work on natural tooth structure, so it will not make a difference on your dental crown. I am sorry this has been such an issue. First, it seems pretty basic to want your teeth to match. Plus, if you were happy with the match your dental flipper gave you, then let me assure you that you are not being overly picky. The problem is your dentist. Worse, rather than admit that, he is blaming you for his lack of skill.

He wants an easy job where he just picks a shade from the shade guide and it’s done. That might work on a back tooth, but a front tooth is exposed to the light and a dentist has to create a color map for the ceramist in order to get a good match. I put an example of this at the top of the post so you can see what I mean. This gives some coloring guides to take a shade and make subtle adjustments so that I could match.

On a front tooth this is a challenge, even for an expert cosmetic dentist. It usually takes more than one try. Because of that they will use a temporary try-in paste to make sure they’ve got it right before doing any permanent bonding. Though, despite what your dentist said, you will not damage your dental implant case by having this worked on again.

I suggest you ask for a refund on the crown part only and then see an expert cosmetic dentist for the crown. They’ll be sure that you have the match you love.

This blog is brought to you by a compassionate dentist in Naples, Dr. Robert Bracho.