Crowns
Dental crowns ("tooth caps") are one of dentistry's most versatile restorations. Beyond just offering a way to rebuild and strengthen damaged or compromised teeth, they also provide a way by which a tooth's overall appearance (color, shape and even apparent alignment) can be vastly improved.
Today, crowns are most frequently made of white porcelain. The crown is sculpted to match the shape, size and color of your teeth. Once cemented in place, the crown is usually indistinguishable from a real tooth. It is also possible to make the crown out of gold or other metals if the patient wishes.
Why do teeth need dental crowns?
There are two main reasons we might reccomend placing a crown on a tooth:
Using crowns to strengthen teeth - dental crowns are routinely made for teeth that have broken, or have large portions missing due to tooth decay .The crown can restore the tooth's shape, and can also provide a reinforcing and strengthening effect for it too. Dental fillings , can't typically provide a substantial reinforcing effect for a tooth in the same way.
Using porcelain crowns to improve the cosmetic appearance of teeth -
Because dental crowns encase the visible portion of a tooth, a porcelain crown can be used to enhance or idealize the cosmetic appearance of a tooth.
before after Porcelain crowns
Taken to
an extreme, this technique can be used to radically improve the appearance of a person's smile. In fact, in decades past it was common to hear that some movie stars had had their teeth "capped." This simply m eant that they got their perfect "Hollywood" smile by way of having dental crowns placed.
In order to cover a tooth with a crown, a small amount of the tooths outer enamel is shaved off after the tooth has been totally numbed. Until recently, all crowns were made by a dental lab requiring the patient to return for a second appointment to fit and cement the crown over the tooth. Our office now has a digitaly guided machine which alows us to prepare a tooth, sculpt the crown and cement it on the tooth all in one visit. This technology is called Cerec.
