Same-Day Crowns: How CEREC Lets You Walk Out With a Finished Crown

A crown in a single appointment used to sound like science fiction. For most of dental history, getting a crown meant two visits, a temporary crown in between, and a couple of weeks of waiting while a lab made the real thing. At BDS we have a CEREC machine, which changes that completely — and in this piece I want to demystify how it works, because it’s genuinely clever and a real benefit to patients.

This is the third piece in my BDS Dental series.

The traditional way, for comparison

To appreciate the same-day version, it helps to remember how a conventional crown goes. The first appointment is around an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes: I prepare the tooth, take an impression, and fit a temporary crown. That impression goes off to a laboratory, and we usually recommend allowing around ten working days for the lab to make the crown — so realistically you’re looking at two to three weeks before your second appointment, when the finished crown is fitted.

That works perfectly well, and for many cases it’s still entirely appropriate. But if you’re short on time, those weeks of waiting — and the second trip back — can be inconvenient. And if you want it faster, the lab can often turn it around sooner, but they charge more for the rush, and that gets passed on. That’s the backdrop against which same-day crowns shine.

How a CEREC crown actually works

With CEREC, the whole thing happens in one appointment. Here’s the journey from the chair.

I prepare the tooth just as I would for any crown. Then, instead of a putty impression, I take a digital scan. That scanner is connected to a milling machine, and once I’ve designed the crown from the scan, the machine carves it out of a small ceramic block. While it mills, you’re free — you can pop downstairs, or go for a walk, for roughly twenty to forty minutes depending on which tooth we’re doing.

What comes out of the mill is a sort of lilac-coloured shell — the crown, but not yet finished. You come back, and I try it in your mouth. If everything’s right — it fits well, the bite is good — I glaze it: I coat it in a material that gives it a natural shine, and I can add staining at this point too, all done by me right there, to get the colour and character right for your tooth. The glazed shell then goes into a furnace for around twenty-six minutes, which transforms it into the final, hardened, shiny crown. Then I bond it onto your tooth, and you leave with the finished article.

Start to finish, it’s typically a two-to-three-hour appointment. One visit, one numbing, one finished crown, no temporary, no second trip.

The honest caveats

I want to be straight about the edge cases, because no technique is magic. Occasionally a milled crown doesn’t fit quite right first time — and then we have to scan again and mill again, which adds time to the appointment. It’s not common, but it can happen, and I’d rather you knew. In practice, on this machine, problems have been rare. It’s a relatively new addition to the practice, and the results have been excellent.

The real advantages for you

Beyond the obvious time saving, there’s a cost angle that patients appreciate. Because there’s no external laboratory making the crown, there’s no lab fee — the ceramic block itself costs only a little, perhaps ten or fifteen pounds, rather than the couple of hundred a lab might charge. That means we can often reduce the overall cost of the crown compared with the traditional route. So same-day isn’t just more convenient; it can be a little easier on the wallet too.

It’s particularly brilliant for patients in a hurry — someone who needs something sorted before a trip, say — or simply for anyone who’d rather not take two appointments out of a busy life. And when I happen to have the time free in my diary, it’s a lovely option to be able to offer on the spot.

I’ll be honest and say my colleague Ellie is faster at it than I am — he can do one in about two hours, where I’ll take closer to three — but the patient gets the same finished result either way, and the careful, unhurried pace suits how I like to work.

In the next piece I want to talk about something quite different — extractions, and how I keep nervous patients calm through a procedure that, for many people, is the one they dread most.

Dr Reem Al-Kufaishi is a general dentist at BDS Dental offering same-day CEREC crowns. To find out whether a same-day crown suits you, contact the practice here. You can also book online here.