Bridges without implants, and the price the neighbouring teeth pay
A bridge fills a gap by grinding down the healthy teeth on either side and cementing a three-unit span onto them. It is quick, it is proven, and it costs you two teeth you still had.
How it is done here ONE Dental Clinic
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Before implants, this is how a missing tooth was replaced, and it is still the right answer in some mouths. The two teeth flanking the gap are prepared, meaning reduced to stumps, and a single unit carrying three teeth is cemented over them.
What it buys you
Speed. There is no fixture to integrate, so there is no waiting for bone. It is a matter of weeks rather than months, and for a patient who cannot make two trips to Korea that is not a small consideration.
What it costs you
Tooth. If the flanking teeth were healthy and untouched, they are now permanently prepared and will need crowning for the rest of their lives. That is the real price of a bridge and it does not appear on any invoice.
Cantilever bridges
Where there is only one usable tooth beside the gap, a cantilever bridge carries the replacement off that single support. The clinic performs these. It is a compromise design, applies leverage to the supporting tooth, and belongs in specific situations rather than as a general answer.
- Time
- Weeks, not months.
- Surgery
- None.
- Cost to neighbouring teeth
- They are permanently reduced and crowned.
- Bone
- Continues to resorb under the gap. A bridge does not stop this.
- Cantilever
- One support instead of two. Leverage on that tooth.
Clinical photographs
This article is information, not medical advice, and reading it does not create a doctor-patient relationship. The Seoul Glow is a registered facilitator: we coordinate care, we do not practise medicine and we do not decide what treatment is right for you. No outcome can be guaranteed by anyone. Discuss any procedure with a licensed physician who has examined you.
