What Is A Dental Crown (Dental Cap)?

Dental crowns (tooth crowns) are used by cosmetic dentists when the majority of the surface of a tooth becomes so badly damaged that it is no longer possible to do cavity fillings or cosmetic porcelain inlays or cosmetic porcelain onlays. Crowns literally replace the entire surface of the tooth with a porcelain shell.

Do I Need A Dental Crown?

The only way to know for sure if you need a dental crown is to have your dentist evaluate if any part of the existing tooth can be saved. Generally, if the tooth is damaged so badly that an onlay cannot be used, a crown must be used.

How Long Does A Crown Take

In the past, your only option for getting a crown required two visits. The first visit to create your crown involved taking an impression of the existing tooth and surrounding teeth. After the impression was made, a temporary crown was created and the impression of your tooth was sent to a lab where a porcelain crown was created and returned to the dentist. With the newly created crown in hand, the dentist would schedule a second appointment and the crown was then permanently cemented in place. This process has been replaced with the advent of CEREC crowns.

What Is A CEREC Crown

Old crown technology required two visits to the dentist office. With the advent of CEREC crowns, the dentist can prepare your tooth, create a topographic map of your tooth, and send the information to a computer that creates a new crown in the office while you watch your favorite movie or listen to some music. The whole process only takes about one hour. CEREC crowns are strong, durable and can be color matched to adjacent teeth making the crown virtually undistinguishable from your natural teeth.

What Other Types Of Crowns Are There?

There are several types of dental crowns. Gold Crown - The oldest type of dental crown still used today is made from gold and is still considered to be one of the stronger, more precise crowns made. The benefit of gold crowns is their strength and extremely low chance of chipping. One disadvantage of gold crowns is their appearance. For this reason, they are usually only used on teeth in the back of your mouth.

Resin and Porcelain Crowns - Porcelain and resin are the cosmetic dentists' crown of choice. These porcelain and resin crowns are strong, bond well to teeth, can be color matched to surrounding teeth and do not have any metal in them. Porcelain crowns are also translucent, more closely simulating the translucent characteristics of natural teeth.

Porcelain and Metal Crowns - Sometimes metal material will be used for the base of a crown and porcelain for the outer shell. This combination provides the benefit of the strength and flexibility of metal with the color matched qualities of porcelain. In some cases, because of the metal base, the dentist will not be able to completely match the tooth due to the reduction of translucence cause by the metal. Translucence is the quality of a tooth that gives it depth when it is struck by light.