Crowns A crown is an excellent way to restore a damaged tooth. It covers your tooth above the gum line, adding strength and restoring your tooth's function. If you delay treatment, whether tooth structure was lost due to cavities or breakage, the situation is just going to get worse. Untreated cavities will grow slowly in the hard enamel, then more quickly through the softer dentin layer. If decay reaches the pulp chamber, you'll need root canal treatment to save the tooth. On the other hand, if tooth structure was lost due to breakage and the tooth breaks more, it's going to be harder to fix, and we may have no choice but to extract it. An extraction is only a short-term solution. Teeth need each other for support, and when one or more teeth are lost, teeth begin to shift position, causing a chain reaction of other dental problems. Changes in your bite can lead to cavities, periodontal disease, and maybe even more tooth loss. A filling may be an alternative, but fillings don't add strength to the tooth. They simply fill in the damaged part of the tooth lost to decay. For a filling to function correctly, there has to be enough tooth structure to hold it in place and keep the tooth from breaking when you chew. Tooth Colored Crowns A tooth-colored crown may be made of both porcelain and metal, or, thanks to newly available technology, it may be made entirely of porcelain. Recent breakthroughs in adhesives, combined with the development of stronger porcelain materials, allow us to make crowns entirely out of porcelain. All-porcelain crowns maintain a translucency that makes them hard to tell from natural teeth. Without metal, the problem of a dark line at the edge of the gums is eliminated. This allows us to place the edge of the crown above the gumline, and that's healthier for your tooth and gums. When you want to improve your smile, all-porcelain crowns are a beautiful and natural looking choice. In the past, porcelain crowns were always built upon a metal core. That was the only way they could have enough strength to withstand the tremendous biting forces that are exerted on all of your teeth. That metal core is what creates the dark blue line at the edge of many crowns. After Root Canal Root canal treatment leaves a tooth brittle and weak. The tooth is weakened because we had to remove the center of it to get at the infected nerve. This leaves only the sides of the tooth for support. The nerve and blood supply are also removed during root canal treatment, so the remaining tooth structure may become brittle over time. Crowns strengthen and protect. A tremendous amount of force is applied to the edges of teeth when you bite together. If a tooth is not crowned after root canal treatment, that force can cause some of the tooth to break away. If a tooth breaks, it is much more difficult to repair. After root canal treatment, a crown is an important step that covers, strengthens and protects your tooth. |
