19 Alpers Avenue
Newmarket
Auckland
NEW ZEALAND 1001

phone [+64] 09 524 5056
fax [+64] 09 524 5057

contact us

more...

- cosmetic dentistry
- dental hygienists
- CEREC
- sterilisation
- tooth whitening
- implants
- more on implants

did you know...

Our staff of 20 are from seven different countries and only 3 were born and grew up in Auckland!

home : orthodontics : cerec

I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it
- H.E. Foduir

Check out other dentists’ web sites and you find they pretty well all say they are at the ‘cutting edge of dentistry’. Yeah right! If they haven’t got a CEREC machine, then they are so far off the edge that they might as well give up now and go join the Army or some other useful occupation.

We bought a CEREC 2 machine [the first one in the country] in 1997 and recently upgraded to a CEREC 3. So it's not like we just bought one of these things last week and want you to come in so we can practice on you - we have done this stuff for a loooong time and we have had more experience than most NZ dentists with CEREC

So what is CEREC?

CEREC simply is a computer with a camera that measures the exact [to a fraction of a mm] dimensions of a cavity prepared [in our office] by Sarah or Bernard. The computer then sends radio signals to a milling unit [sometimes in another part of the building] that precisely cuts a block of tooth coloured porcelain to the shape of the required filling [we call them inlays, veneers, or crowns].

The dentist then cements the inlay in place in the tooth cavity and, ta raa, you have a ‘state of the art’ porcelain inlay [no mercury here!] prepared and placed in one visit – now THAT’S the ‘cutting edge of dentistry’!

Here’s how it happens – step by step:

You jump on the comfortable dental chair and Sarah [or Bernard] gives you one of those nice injections to make the tooth bits go numb.
Any old fillings and decay are removed from the tooth and the cavity is shaped for strength and long life.
An optical 3D image is recorded with a small camera placed right over the tooth. - see the photo on the right
On the computer monitor, the restoration is created over the photo of the tooth [you can watch this!]
Signals are sent to the milling unit and diamond drills reproduce the filling shape in a porcelain block. This is known as CAD/CAM which means ‘computer aided design / computer aided manufacture’.
The new restoration is polished and fitted precisely to the tooth using a light cured bonding material
The final polish leaves a smooth, natural feel and the matched colour means the filling blends with the tooth.
You have maximum strength, long life, great looks – and no metal!
So you jump out of the chair, smile at yourself in the mirror, congratulate Sarah [or Bernard] on a perfect job, go pay the account, and return to the real world, humming happily to yourself as you go.

So how long and how much?
Well, depending on the size of the restoration, you could be in the chair for one to two hours [don’t drink too much before the appointment!]

And the cost of CEREC restoration will be somewhere between $1000 and $1500 – again depending on the size of the inlay or crown. About the same cost as a crown – but then, this technique is a lot less destructive to the tooth than is the pencil-sharpening trimming of a tooth in a crown preparation.

So in summary:

A CEREC inlay will protect and preserve the tooth’s structural integrity
Ceramics are bio-compatible.
Only one appointment is needed.
Perfect looks.
Perfect comfort.
Perfect quality.
Long lasting and durable.
An extremely cost effective restoration.

Have you ever felt like a wounded cow
halfway between an oven and a pasture?
walking in a trance toward a pregnant
seventeen-year-old housewife's
two-day-old cookbook?

- Richard Brautigan