Aside from the aesthetic quality, isn’t gold just a bad choice for teeth replacement? For one thing it’s expensive, gold is a soft metal (can you bend gold teeth easily?), and let’s face it, they look really stupid.
Now I just saw Pirates of the Carribbean, and Johnny Depp does indeed look cool with his gold teeth. But there’s only one reason for it–he’s a pirate and he’s Johnny Depp.
Anyone have gold in their mouth? If so, why?
Non-toxic for one thing… I forget all the reasons but any dentist will tell you more than you need to know about teeth.
Pure gold is soft, however various gold alloys can be pretty durrable. I doubt if pure gold is being used in dental work. Searching around, it seems that silver-palladium-gold-copper alloys are fairly commonly used. The look gold, but wear much better than the pure metal would.
Gold is only soft if it is pure and you will never find pure gold in any sort of normal use. The primary reason for its use in dental work is that it is one of the few metals known, that is relatively common, that will not corrode. If you used iron, copper, tin, etc. the teeth would quickly get very nasty, fall apart, and probably poison you in the process.
in regards to the “ghetto grills” you may see, it is significantly cheaper to have teeth replaced with gold work than with porcelain. If you are poor and have no health insurance, a $300 set of gold teeth is the best option over a $3000 set of porcelain.
Gold crowns cost the same as porcelain fused to gold crowns in my office. Our lab fees are about the same for the two types. All-porcelain or pressed composite/lucite are $100 more. The difference is not that great unless you are going for full mouth reconstruction. We do full gold crowns for posterior teeth only.
We use an alloy with 60-75% gold, depending on type of restoration. High gold content is better for gingival health. Pure gold leaf used to be used for tamped inlays.
Even if we used noble vs. high noble alloys, we couldn’t approach $300 for one crown. There is only about a $20 difference in lab costs between the two. Non-precious metal crowns can be had, but they look nothing like gold.
I just (yesterday) had a gold crown installed. My dentist thought it to be a better choice over the porcelain due to the mallebility of the gold vs the brittleness of the porcelain. It is over one of my molars which had split for some reason. So far I love it.
Well according to this dentist chick I used to be friends with she mentioned porcelain can abraid opposing teeth which is a bit of a concern. Actually the ADA has a thing on this comparing various restoration materials. Here it is.
http://www.ada.org/prof/prac/issues/topics/materials-indirect.html
I always though the “ghetto grills” were to show wealth. Which is odd if this is true:
Re: “ghetto grills” - there are people who get gold teeth because they like how they look. There are businesses who cater to these people. There’s a business in downtown Oakland called “Gold Tooth Master” that, I assume, does nothing but install gold teeth - a sort of dental cosmetic surgery, like getting eye shadow tattooed on one’s eyelids.
ok so has anyone see the new and improved Mel C since she had that nasty gold tooth removed…now she looks the part 
I have a gold tooth. They told me I did not have enough tooth left to support a porcelin one. Plus, gold lasts longer and is less likely to have something go wrong with it. Since it is my back molar, it doesn’t bug me. In fact, I think it’s pretty cool in a pirate-like way.
Haarrr!
So are there people who get normal healthy teeth pulled and have them replaced with gold teeth just to change their look?
:eek:
No, I think in most cases you can have a gold cap placed over the tooth, although it might require filing of the healthy tooth in order to accomodate the fit of the cap.
Anyone else find that last part funny. 