Dental Crowns

 

      For a long time, dental crowns were referred to as caps, and even now you may still hear the term cap used by older people and by those who do not work in dentistry. Most dentists today use the term 'crown' instead. 

    Dental crowns are caps placed on top of damaged teeth. Crowns are used to protect, cover and restore the shape of your teeth when fillings won’t solve the problem. Dental crowns can be made out of metals, porcelain, resin and ceramics. You may need a crown for several reasons, including: 

 

*Protecting a weak tooth (possibly from decay) from breaking or to keep the weak tooth together if parts of it are cracked. 

* Restoring a broken tooth or a severely worn down tooth. 

* Covering and supporting a tooth with a large filling and not much 

* Holding a dental bridge in place. 

* Covering misshapen or severely discolored teeth. 

* Covering a dental implant. 

* Covering a tooth that’s been treated with a root canal. 

 

     Crowns can be made out of many different materials. Metal: gold, palladium, nickel and chromium. Metal crowns rarely chip or break, last the longest in terms of wear down and only require a small amount of your tooth to be removed. They can also withstand biting and chewing forces. The metallic color is the main drawback of this type of crown. 

     Porcelain-fused-to-metal: This type of dental crown can be matched to the color of the teeth that’s next to the crown. They have a more natural tooth color. However, sometimes the metal under the crown’s porcelain cap shows through as a dark line. Other cons include the chance of the crown’s porcelain portion chipping or breaking off and the crown wearing down the teeth opposite it within the mouth.

     All-resin: Dental crowns made out of resin are generally less expensive than other crown types. However, they wear down over time and are more likely to break than porcelain-fused-to-metal crowns. 

     All-ceramic or all-porcelain: These types of dental crowns provide the best natural color match compared to any other crown type. They aren’t as strong as porcelain-fused-to-metal crowns and can also wear down the teeth opposite them in the mouth a little more than metal or resin crowns. 

     Pressed ceramic: These have a hard inner core and are capped with porcelain, which provides the best natural color match. They’re also more long-lasting than an all-porcelain crown. 

     A dentist with modern equipment (like mine) can make crowns in their office in about two hours. The process starts off by removing decay (if any) and shaping the tooth for a perfect fit inside the crown. After this a scanning device is used to take digital pictures of the tooth and computer software creates a 3D model of the tooth from these pictures. The digital design is then sent to another machine that carves the shape of the crown out of a block of ceramic. This method of making a dental crown is called computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM). When the crown is finished it is cemented into place and you're done. Watch on Youtube HERE