Crown Procedure Here at Jeanette Thai, DDS, we can fit you with a customized crown to protect your teeth. Crowns are a cover that is placed over a damaged or decayed tooth to protect it. They tend to be used to cover a broken tooth or one that has been seriously damaged, so filling isn’t enough to make the tooth strong. A crown is even able to support multiple parts of a cracked tooth, together.They can be ready ahead of time or custom-made in a lab. The premade ones tend to be either plastic or stainless steel and are used temporarily until your custom-made permanent one is ready. Permanent ones can be made of metal, ceramic, zirconia and porcelain fused to either metal or zirconia. Metal and porcelain fused to metal (PFM) crowns are stronger and thus make better choices for molars, but the metal ones can look unattractive, so PFM crowns tend to be preferred. All-ceramic crowns also resemble a natural tooth appearance. Which one you choose is important since your crown will last at least seven years but can last much longer. PreparationWhen needing a crown, you might also need some kind of treatment like endodoncy (root canal) depending on your case. Afterward, if most of your tooth is missing, decayed, or damaged, we might need to build a foundation for it. If we perform something like root canal treatment, we’d have to insert a post-and-core foundation, for example. We will then file it down to make space for the crown, so it fits within your normal bite. At this point, we can start the crown-fitting procedure. ProcedureFollowing this traditional procedure, we’ll push the gums away from the tooth using a thread or cord and then proceed to make an impression of your tooth using a rubber-like material. It sets in about five minutes. Some people don’t like the gooey texture or have a hard time waiting that amount of time, so we can also use digital technology to take the impressions. We also take an impression of the teeth surrounding the tooth to be crowned to fit it into your normal bite. We then send the impressions to the lab so your crown can be made. In the meantime, you will be given a temporary crown. Temporary crowns are usually made of plastic, and even though they don’t last long, they can also stay in place for up to a year if taken care of properly. They are held in place using temporary cement that is a bit weaker so the dentist can remove it easily when you return for your permanent one After removing the temporary crown (on a second visit), we test out the permanent crown’s fit. Then we adjust, polish and glaze if necessary before permanently cementing it on your tooth. To know more about normal or traditional crowns, call the experienced professionals here at Jeanette Thai, DDS at (949) 837-8482 today for a personalized consultation! |
