Dental crowns are, in essence, hollow artificial teeth that are made to help protect or improve your smile. Crowns play a wide variety of dental roles from, bridges to enamel protection to fixing a broken tooth. For each use, the best type of crown used is slightly different. But all of the uses show that crowns are as functional as they are versatile.
Here are three different ways a dental crown could help protect and/or improve your smile.
Dental Bridge
A dental bridge is a rigid dental replacement option for a missing tooth. The bridge includes an artificial tooth -- called the pontic -- attached to two crowns for support. Those crowns are then bonded to neighboring healthy teeth to provide an anchor for the pontic, which hangs in the hole vacated by the missing tooth.
There are two primary types of bridges used: conventional and cantilever. A conventional bridge has one crown on each side of the pontic. This helps the crowns spread the bite force away from the pontic to minimize potential damage to that artificial tooth over time.
A cantilever bridge differs because the two crowns are both on the same side of the pontic. The crowns would be bonded onto two teeth that are next to each other and then the pontic would hang in the hole to the side of those teeth. This setup is useful when there isn't a healthy tooth on one side of the missing tooth gap.
Protective Covering
Damage to the enamel layer on the teeth opens up the dentin for potential damage and staining. Damage can include cavities or chipping. Dentin staining can be as yellow as enamel staining but is harder to remove. If a tooth is particularly vulnerable to future damage, your dentist might decide to protect the tooth with a crown.
The surface of the tooth will be gently filed to create an abrasive surface for the bonding cement to stick. Your dentist will create a full tooth sized crown that will fit around the entire exterior for protection. The crown essentially serves as the new artificial enamel layer.
Reshaping
Do you have a tooth that's chipped, cracked, or slightly smaller than neighboring teeth? Your dentist might be able to cover and reshape the tooth using a dental crown.
For a chipped or cracked tooth, your dentist will start by filing away any rough or sharp edges. The dental crown is then adhered around the damage to offer cosmetic concealment and protection from further damage. If your tooth is too small, the dentist will still need to file down the exterior slightly. But the thickness of the crown itself can help reshape and plump up the small tooth so that it matches its neighbors.
Contact a clinic like Welch Dental Care to learn more.
Share5 August 2015
When the bottled water craze began, I jumped on the bandwagon with everyone else who was drinking water from bottles instead of from the tap. I wasn't sure why bottled water was healthier, but I liked the taste. When I went for my next dental check-up, I had my first cavity in a while, so I had it filled and didn't think much of it. Well, I had two more during my next check-up after that, and I began trying to think of why my teeth were suddenly going bad. The only change in my habits was the switch to bottled water, so I made the switch back to tap water and my teeth began to improve. I created this blog to encourage others who have begun getting cavities suddenly to look into their changes in habits. They may find they made a change similar to mine.