At LD Klinik a monolithic zirconium crown is £165 per tooth (€200 / $225) and an E.max crown is £210 per tooth (€240 / $280). A temporary crown is £60. Where the tooth needs preparation first, root canal treatment is £100 per root, a post is £60 and a core build-up filling is £70. Your written quotation itemises every element per tooth and is fixed before you book a flight.

Neither is better overall — they are used for different jobs. E.max is a lithium disilicate glass ceramic that transmits light like natural enamel, making it the standard choice for front teeth and premolars. Monolithic zirconium is milled from a solid block and is considerably stronger under load, making it the correct choice for molars, for bridges spanning more than one missing tooth, and for patients who grind. Many treatment plans use both in the same mouth.

Crowns on natural teeth are completed in a single trip of five to seven days: examination and planning on day one, preparation and temporary crowns on day two, an unbonded try-in around days three to five, and final cementation on days five to seven. Crowns on implants require two trips of five to seven days, separated by three to six months of healing at home while the implant fuses with bone.

Preparation and fitting are carried out under local anaesthetic, so the appointments themselves are not painful. Mild sensitivity to hot and cold is normal for a few days after preparation and while wearing temporaries, and settles once the final crown is bonded. Sensitivity that increases rather than decreases over the weeks afterwards is not normal and should be checked. Sedation is available at £390 per hour for anxious patients and is agreed in advance.

Ten to fifteen years is typical for well-fitted ceramic crowns, and often longer. What ends a crown's life is almost never the ceramic itself: it is decay in the natural tooth just under the margin, gum disease causing recession, or grinding without a night guard. Daily flossing at the crown margin, six-monthly hygiene appointments, and a guard if you clench are what determine the result.

Because bridges are priced per unit, and a unit is one crown-shaped piece of ceramic. Replacing a single missing tooth conventionally means crowning the tooth on each side and suspending a false tooth between them — three units in total, so £495 in zirconium. For a single gap this often costs about the same as an implant with a crown, which does not require grinding down two healthy neighbouring teeth.

Some single crowns can be milled chairside with CEREC technology where the case allows. In practice most international patients are treated across a five to seven day visit instead, because that schedule includes an unbonded try-in stage before cementation. That try-in is where fit, contact points, bite and shade are verified and problems are still free to correct, and skipping it to save two days is a poor trade.

A single crown matched to surrounding natural teeth is the hardest case in restorative dentistry, and the shade should be chosen against your face in natural light rather than under surgery lighting. E.max is generally used for single front crowns because its translucency picks up colour from the teeth around it. If you are planning to whiten your natural teeth, do that first — ceramic does not respond to whitening agents, so the crown must be matched to the final shade, not the current one.

A veneer is a thin ceramic facing bonded to the front surface of the tooth and removes very little tooth structure. A crown covers the whole tooth and requires it to be reshaped in every direction, which cannot be reversed. Veneers suit sound teeth with colour, chip or minor alignment complaints. Crowns are for teeth that are structurally weakened — heavily filled, root-treated, cracked or worn.

No. Porcelain-fused-to-metal crowns are cheaper but carry a metal substructure that shows as a grey line at the gum margin as gums recede over the years, and the layered porcelain can chip away from the metal beneath. For visible teeth we do not regard them as an acceptable long-term result, which is why they do not appear on our price list.

Contact the clinic first and send photographs — many issues can be assessed remotely, and minor adjustments such as a high bite can be carried out by a local dentist. Where a restoration is covered by our 5-year written guarantee and needs remaking, that is arranged with us directly. The guarantee document sets out what is covered and what is excluded; read it before you fly rather than after.

If you grind or clench, yes — and most people who grind do not know they do until a dentist points out the wear pattern. Night-time clenching generates forces well beyond normal chewing, and it is the most common cause of ceramic chipping in otherwise well-fitted work. A gum shield is £60 and is standard guarantee-related advice where bruxism is identified at examination.