A Crown can make your tooth stronger and improve its appearance.
A crown can help strengthen a tooth with a large filling when there isn’t enough tooth remaining to hold the filling.
Crowns are usually indicated to:
- Protect a weak tooth from breaking or restore one that’s already broken.
-Cover teeth that are discolored or badly shaped.
- It’s also used to cover a dental implant.
- Crowns can also be used to attach bridges (3 crowns or more attached together to form a bridge that can replace missing teeth)
If we recommends a crown to you, it is probably to correct one of these conditions.
They are usually made of porcelain, and the porcelain ‘tooth’ may have a gold or metal core for added strength. Where a natural appearance is not essential (e.g. at the back of your mouth), a gold or other metal crown may be used.
How are Crowns/Bridges Fitted?
First your dentist will reduce the size of the existing filling and tooth to make room for the new crown, and then take a mould which is sent to a dental technician. Sometimes the filling in the tooth to be crowned is completely removed to check for decay and to rebuild the tooth for increased strength. Your dentist will fit a temporary crown to cover your tooth until the permanent crown has been made by a dental technician. Once your permanent crown is ready, your dentist will check the fit and appearance before cementing it in place.