An adhesive bridge is a modern and solid denture. Especially with healthy neighboring teeth, minor tooth defects, or individual tooth loss, the adhesive bridge offers an excellent opportunity to close individual tooth gaps and only treat the healthy neighboring teeth with minimal invasiveness.
What is an adhesive bridge?
Bridges comprise bridge piers and pontics. The adhesive bridge is a bridge made up of three parts: two bridge abutments that limit the tooth gap and one bridge member. This bridge pontic closes the single tooth gap.
The special feature: An adhesive bridge is attached using an adhesive.
While your teeth are ground with normal dentures and an enormous amount of hard tooth substance is removed, adhesive materials are used for adhesive bridges. It only removes the hard tooth substance in a minimally invasive manner. Then the adhesive surface is roughened using acid-etching technology. We can then incorporate the adhesive bridge using a special dental adhesive.
Depending on the situation, it distinguishes between single and double-wing adhesive bridges. Single-winged ones are only blocked with one abutment tooth, while double-wing adhesive bridges are bonded to two abutment teeth.
An adhesive bridge is only possible in special cases
An adhesive bridge is a tooth replacement variant that is gentle on the teeth, but they tie the conditions for a successful hold of this adhesive bridge to demand basic conditions.
Using an adhesive bridge is only possible in special situations:
- The bridge abutment teeth must be free of caries
- In contrast to small-area fillings, large-area fillings are a contraindication for adhesive bridges
- Sufficient tooth enamel is necessary to create an adhesive bond
- If several teeth are missing, this is often a contraindication for adhesive bridges. Further spanning of up to four front teeth is possible in the lower jaw. However, the arched course of the row of teeth and jawbone often creates a problem for these wide spans in adhesive bridges since they are rigid in course.
When is an adhesive bridge usually used?
- Gum disease: In adults, gum disease and the associated loss of individual teeth are reasons for using adhesive bridges
- After orthodontic treatments: We often use adhesive bridges in children and adolescents after orthodontic treatments that have resulted in minimal gaps between the teeth. It is important here to use double-wing adhesive bridges only after the jaw has grown. It does not prevent a complete maturation and change of the teeth.
- As a long-term provisional: An adhesively fixed denture with adhesive bridges is also possible as a long-term provisional before final implantation to permanently close gaps. We should note here that bone growth takes significantly longer in boys than in girls. While bone growth is already complete in girls at around 17 years of age, this is not the case for boys until they are 21 years old. Implantation is therefore only useful after the jawbone growth is complete.
What are the advantages?
Successfully adhering to adhesive bridges places outrageous demands on precision, integration, technical production in the laboratory, and on your oral hygiene.
The advantages of an adhesive bridge are:
- the minimally invasive loss of hard tooth substance of the bridge abutment teeth
- Avoiding pulp/nerve damage by minimal grinding of your teeth
- Hardly any irritation of one’s own gums because of insufficient contact between the adhesive bridge and the gums
- painless production through minimal drilling
- Avoiding syringe applications through careful manufacturing
- Immediate notice of the loosening of the adhesive bridges
- Prevention of secondary caries, since the caries can hardly develop unnoticed under the inserted bridge
- Excellent use of single-wing adhesive bridges in adolescents
How does the treatment with an adhesive bridge work?
Despite the minimally invasive procedure, we must prepare you for several treatment sessions.
Step 1: making planning models
First, it takes all your teeth in the upper and lower jaw to create planning models.
Step 2: treating your teeth
Your dentist will then treat your teeth. The tooth surfaces facing the palate are minimally ground in a so-called insertion direction. We must push both bridge abutments in parallel so that as minor forces as possible can act from different directions when loading your new denture. This prevents the adhesive bridge from loosening prematurely.
Step 3: taking an impression of your teeth
This is followed by a definitive impression of your teeth prepared by the dentist so that the laboratory can produce the dentures. Tooth color and shape are individually adapted to you.
Step 4: control
In another session, your dentist will check the fit and adaptation of the tooth color to your natural teeth. The adhesive bridge is then glued on using the acid-etching technique.
Regular and intensive oral hygiene offers a perfect and the most important basis for a long-lasting hold of your new adhesive bridge. You should also not neglect regular checks by your dentist.