Dental Crowns & Bridges

A crown is a custom made cap that covers a tooth entirely, restoring its strength and its appearance. A bridge replaces one or more missing teeth by anchoring replacements to the teeth on either side of the gap.

Both are everyday dentistry, and both are done badly often enough that the details matter. What follows is how we decide, what each option costs, and what actually determines whether the work lasts.

When a tooth needs a crown

• After a root canal on a back tooth, where the hollowed tooth will crack without one
• When a tooth is cracked, or a cusp has broken off
• When more than about half the tooth structure is gone to decay or an old filling
• When a large filling keeps breaking or leaking
• When a tooth is badly worn down, often from grinding
• As part of a smile makeover, where shape and shade are being changed together

And when it does not. If there is enough healthy tooth around a filling, a filling is the right answer and costs a fraction as much. A crown removes tooth structure permanently, so it should never be the default.

Choosing the material

Price is the least interesting part of this decision. Position in the mouth is the most important.

Material	Best for	Trade-off
Metal	Back molars nobody sees	Strongest and cheapest, but silver coloured
PFM (porcelain fused to metal)	Mid mouth, good value	A thin dark line can show at the gum over years
Zirconia	Front or back, the common choice today	Tooth coloured throughout, very strong, no dark line
E-max / all ceramic	Front teeth where looks matter most	Most natural appearance, not for heavy biting molars

Full price ranges for each are in our dental crown cost guide.

Ask any clinic two questions before agreeing to a crown: which lab makes it, and does it come with a warranty card. A ₹1,500 crown is usually an unbranded metal crown with no warranty and a poor fit, and a poorly fitting crown lets decay in at the edges. That does not just fail, it takes the tooth with it.

The crown that finishes a root canal

Most crowns we fit are the final step of a root canal treatment. A treated back tooth is brittle and hollow, and chewing force cracks it without protection. A cracked root canal tooth usually cannot be saved.

Skipping this step is the single most common way people lose a tooth they already paid to save. If you have had a root canal elsewhere and never got the crown, it is worth having the tooth looked at.

Bridges, and when an implant is the better answer

A bridge for one missing tooth is normally three units: a crown on each neighbouring tooth, with the replacement tooth joined between them. It is fixed, it looks natural, and it is usually finished within two to three weeks.

The catch is that both neighbouring teeth have to be shaped down to hold the crowns, and that cannot be undone. So:

• A bridge often makes sense when the neighbouring teeth already need crowns, when you want the gap closed quickly, or when bone loss rules out an implant.
• An implant usually makes sense when the neighbours are healthy and untouched, when you are replacing a single tooth, and when you can wait a few months for healing.

We will give you the honest comparison for your mouth, including the cost of each, rather than steering you to whichever is convenient.

Why gaps should not be left alone

A missing tooth is not only a cosmetic problem. The teeth on either side start tilting into the space and the opposing tooth drifts down towards it, because nothing is holding them in position. Over a year or two the bite changes, cleaning gets harder, and what was a simple replacement becomes a more complicated case that may need alignment first.

Replacing a gap early is simpler and cheaper than replacing it late.

Real results from our chair

The before and after cases on this page are real patients of the clinic, photographed here: a chipped front tooth rebuilt, a missing upper front tooth replaced, and a full smile rebuild where old mismatched crowns and missing lower teeth were redone as one even smile. Results vary from person to person, and every case starts with an examination rather than a promise.

Making it last

Crowns rarely fail in the middle. They fail at the margin, the line where crown meets natural tooth, because that is where decay gets in. Which means the lifespan of your crown is decided mostly by how well you clean that line and whether you keep your six monthly cleaning appointments.

Under a bridge, food packs in the space beneath the replacement tooth. Threading floss or an interdental brush under it daily is not optional if you want the supporting teeth to stay healthy. We will show you exactly how at the fitting visit.

If you grind your teeth at night, say so before treatment. Grinding cracks ceramic, and a night guard costs far less than replacing a set of crowns.

Book a consultation in Bellandur

The clinic is in Green Glen Layout, Bellandur, below Ratnadeep Super Market, open every day from 10 AM to 9 PM. Bring any X-rays you already have.

You will leave the first visit knowing what the tooth needs, which materials are sensible for it, what each would cost in writing, and what can safely wait.