A Patient’s Guide to Dental Crowns
If a visit to Seaside Family Dentistry ends with a recommendation from Dr. Santos that your smile needs a dental crown, your oral health probably requires a little assistance to look and feel its best.
Unlike a filling, many patients may not understand the purpose of a dental crown or how the device can help to restore a smile back to health. So that you have a better idea of how the placement of a dental crown may help to repair damage done to your teeth by dental decay, disease, or injury, here are a few basics about dental crowns every patient should know.
What is a dental crown?
A tooth-shaped restoration device, a dental crown fits over an existing tooth damaged by disease, decay, or injury.
When damaged, a tooth becomes structurally unsound, and could break, chip, or crack if not protected by a crown. Dr. Santos can place a dental crown over a damaged tooth to restore the tooth’s size, shape, and integrity. A dental crown can also help to improve the appearance of a tooth in need of repair.
When placed and cemented into position, a crown will completely cover the visible portion of a tooth. To ensure that a tooth remains protected, any portion that appears above the gum line will be covered by the crown.
When is a dental crown needed?
Dental crowns offer our patients a convenient and affordable solution for repairing damaged or missing teeth. Dr. Santos may recommend the placement of a dental crown to patients who need to:
- Protect a tooth damaged by decay from breaking apart or to hold a cracked tooth together.
- Provide additional support to a tooth weakened by decay or return a broken tooth back to health.
- Provide additional support and cover to a tooth that has developed a large cavity when the placement of a filling isn’t an option.
- Cap a dental implant.
- Hold a dental bridge in place.
- Improve the complexion and shape of a tooth that’s turned gray, yellow, or blackened.
- Cover misshapen or badly damaged teeth.
How will Dr. Santos place a dental crown?
In the past, the placement of a dental crown would have taken multiple visits to our Seaside dental clinic. But thanks to the development of CEREC same-day dental crowns, Dr. Santos can restore a patient’s smile back to health after just one appointment.
Using an advanced CAD/CAM system, CEREC enables Dr. Santos to create a 3D image of a patient’s mouth. This image then acts like a model the CEREC system can use to create a custom-made crown that will perfectly fit over a patient’s tooth.
CEREC crowns look and feel exactly like your natural teeth. Unlike traditional metal fillings that stand out from the natural color of your teeth, CEREC crowns will blend seamlessly into the complexion of your smile.
Using this advanced dental technology, Dr. Santos can repair teeth that need a dental crown more quickly and conveniently than ever before.
How do you care for a dental crown?
Once Dr. Santos has placed a dental crown, normal brushing and flossing will help to keep the crown healthy and functioning properly.
Maintaining quality oral hygiene will help to prevent any further dental decay from developing, thereby reducing the risk that the tooth covered by the crown, or any neighboring teeth, will deteriorate as a further result of dental decay.
Visit Seaside Family Dentistry to restore your smile back to health
If you need a dental crown to help restore a damaged tooth back to health, contact our office today to schedule your consultation with Dr. Santos. The longer you wait to have treatment administered to a damaged tooth, the bigger a problem it becomes. Without immediate care, permanent tooth loss could occur that requires more complicated and expensive procedures to fix. Restore your smile back to health. Contact our dental clinic today.