What Are Dental Crowns, and Are They Effective?

Dental crowns are restorations for placement on damaged teeth. Crowns help protect, cover, and restore your teeth’ shape when fillings are inadequate to solve the problem or your tooth has lost significant tooth structure rendering it fragile and needing protection from external sources.

Materials like porcelain, metals, ceramics, and resin help make dental crowns that don’t require special attention after placement on your damaged tooth besides maintaining proper dental hygiene.

Dental Crowns Defined

Your teeth sustain damage over time for various reasons. For example, you might have infections like tooth decay and injuries or damage to the tooth due to overuse, making them lose their shape and size. Dental crowns resemble tooth-shaped caps customized by dental laboratories to fit over your damaged tooth. The tooth crown helps restore the tooth’s shape, strength, appearance, and size. Dental crowns are bonded onto your tooth to encase its visible portion.

Why Might You Need a Dental Crown?

Your dentist might suggest dental crowns near you to protect a weak tooth from breaking or keep it together if parts of it have already cracked. In addition, crowns help restore a broken or severely worn tooth. Finally, these restorations are helpful to support a tooth with large fillings without sufficient tooth structure.

If you have missing teeth and consider dental bridges or implants, crowns help hold a bridge and cover a dental implant. In addition, root canal treatments make it essential for you to restore the affected tooth with a dental crown. Your dentist might also recommend crowning a severely discolored tooth with a tooth cap to hide it from view.

The Dental Crown Process

You must schedule at least two visits to your dentist if you need a tooth cap to cover damaged or decayed teeth. Some dentists also provide same-day crowns to restore your tooth in one appointment instead of multiple. Therefore when getting your tooth fixed, you must decide whether you want to undergo the multi-day procedure or receive same-day crowns from the dentist in Sumter, SC.

Whether you receive multi-day crowns or same-day restorations, the procedure for getting your tooth fixed remains the same. First, the Sumter dentist examines the tooth needing the crown by taking x-rays of the tooth and the surrounding bone. If your tooth has tooth decay, dental pulp injury, or the risk of infection, the dentist recommends a root canal before preparing your tooth. If all things are acceptable, the affected tooth is filed from the top and sides to accommodate the dental crown. Significant tooth structure removal is necessary if you receive metal crowns instead of porcelain or all ceramic crowns. However, same-day crowns require sufficient tooth structure removal because ceramic crowns are thicker than metal restorations but are aesthetically pleasing.

You receive temporary acrylic crowns over the prepared tooth for protection until the dental laboratory fabricates your permanent crown.

The Sumter dentist impressions your tooth to have your restoration custom created from the dental lab, asking you to revisit them in three weeks to have your customized crown over your tooth. If you qualify for same-day crowns, the process eliminates the need for temporary acrylic crowns because the dentist fabricates your restoration in the dental office using CEREC technology to fix your tooth in one appointment.

When you visit the dental office three weeks later, the Sumter dentist starts the procedure by removing the temporary restoration and checking the customized crown for color and fit. After making any adjustments, if required, the permanent crown is bonded to your affected tooth using special dental cement.

Effectiveness of Dental Crowns

A decayed or damaged tooth left untreated is an invitation for your mouth bacteria to create additional damage by penetrating the tooth causing unnecessary pain and impairing your mouth functionality. Dental crowns encase the affected tooth, hiding it from view with a tooth cap resembling your natural teeth. The restoration fixes the shape, size, strength, and appearance of the tooth, providing effective rehabilitation over the tooth remaining for a decade or more with proper dental hygiene.

Caring for Your Dental Restoration

After providing your tooth its crowning glory, you must care for the dental crown and underlying tooth structure to protect it from infections like decay. Therefore you must continue incorporating excellent dental hygiene practices, including brushing twice and flossing once daily, especially around the tooth with the dental crown, and getting six monthly dental cleanings to eliminate plaque buildup around the crowned tooth. You must also refrain from biting on hard surfaces that might damage the dental crown, especially if you have porcelain or ceramic crowns covering the affected tooth.

Restorative Arts Dental provides multi-day and same-day dental crowns to fix damaged or decayed teeth. If you need dental restorations for the above damage, kindly consult this practice to restore your tooth with reliable dental crowns.