NHS dental bridge

sunsetboulevard

Hi,can anyone tell me what materials NHS dental bridges are made of? And what is the maximum number of teeth you can have on a bridge?

I'm trying to avoid any metal in my body and realise that if NHS did have anything suitable I would be paying private prices which I am more than happy to do.

I have an appointment next week and just wanted to be armed with some information before I go there. Thanks.

brook2jack

All NHS bridges will have metal in them, the amount of tooth you have to remove to make a bridge that has no metal in it is much greater and the laboratory fees are much more expensive. In general the substructure is a palladium bonding alloy with silver, copper and gold , the superstructure porcelain.

In general on the NHS a bridge will only be placed to replace one tooth , in general if more teeth are missing then a denture would be provided (which will be metal free) .

Privately larger bridges can be provided , providing your oral health is excellent , you have no gum disease and you have no problems with grinding or your bite , the teeth supporting the bridge are in good condition , well aligned and in a suitable place . Only a dentist who can see you and your x rays can advise as to how large a bridge can be placed.

However large metal free bridges are not a good idea as they are bulky and can chip/break relatively easily .

Toothsmith

The most biocompatible bridge you could have (and also the one that would need least tooth removal) would be a gold one.

sunsetboulevard

Thanks brooktojack and Toothsmith for your replies.

Not sure the gold tooth is the look I'm after, especially as the missing tooth is a front tooth.

I'm really stuck for ideas though, it's not that I don't like the idea of metal in my body it's more that I've an allergy to nickel. At one stage, I was all ready to get All on 4 titanium dental implants and then found out they actually use titanium alloy which contains nickel. So that was a no no.

I then considered getting dental implants made of zirconium which seemed great. However, the dentists using this material seem to be few and far between and the one dentist I did find was charging around £5,000 per tooth which was too much for me. I don't know if prices will come down in the future.

Not sure where to go from here!

brook2jack

There are many nickel free dental alloys , the dentist will need to speak to the lab to make sure they use one . Gold would be the metal they use under the porcelain , however it is expensive and not many labs have gold bonding alloy as porcelain will not Bond to pure gold . You may need a private dentist who has a larger choice of laboratories .

Unfortunately zirconium implants have quite a few limitations and because they come in one piece are technically quite demanding to place as well as being more expensive to buy the bits. That's why so few implantologists place them and they are so expensive.

If you were looking at all on 4 presumably you have many missing teeth , or teeth in bad condition. If this is the case on the NHS you will be offered a denture.

If this is the case you need to look at your oral care and get that sorted before embarking on advanced dentistry because bridges and implants will fail even faster than your own teeth without a meticulous oral hygiene regime.

Toothsmith

No-one need feel that if they have some sort of reaction/allergy with any particular thing, that it is up to them to find the solution before they go and see their dentist!

Believe it or not, these things are not uncommon, and if you just tell the dentist, there are a whole manner of things that can be done quite easily to help you.

Firstly, proper testing can be arranged through hospital departments to see exactly what it is that may be causing the problem (if you've never been tested before, but assume that just because you react to *maybe* cheap jewellery, then it must be nickel) And once that is identified, then suitable materials can be provided.

It is even possible that if a 'proper' allergy is diagnosed, then normally unavailable materials might be provided for you on the NHS.

Just trust your dentist and work through the problem with them, rather than feeling you need to find out the answers for them.

Edit - as Brook said, though, on the NHS, the most likely solution to a gap would be a plastic denture