Why Dental Crowns Are the Perfect Fall Season Accessory
Losing a tooth is an unfortunate experience that may result from oral trauma or dental disease that damages a tooth beyond saving, thus requiring an extraction. Teeth can also get damaged over time due to natural use or accidental injuries, losing their size or shape. A crown can be fitted over that faulty tooth to restore its appearance, strength, size, and shape.
Dentists recommend getting a tooth replacement after a dental extraction. Failure to do so on time causes your jawbone to lose density and weaken. The adjacent teeth may also shift out of place, giving you chewing difficulties.
Fortunately, at All Care Dental by the Sea, several tooth replacement options exist. Some of the most common options used by Port Hueneme dental experts to replace missing teeth are dental implants, fixed bridges, and removable partial dentures. However, when you choose to get a tooth implant to replace your missing tooth’s root, you’ll have to get a dental crown afterward to restore your tooth’s full functionality and strength. This is because the crown acts as a ‘cap’ for the implant.
What is a Crown on a Tooth?
In dental practice, a crown can be described as a tooth cap used in dental restoration that completely encircles a dental implant or a tooth. Normally, a crown is needed to correct a large dental cavity that is threatening your tooth’s health. A tooth cap gets bonded to the top part of the tooth by dental cement. Other reasons that call for crown placement are; to cover severely discolored teeth or misshapen; hold a tooth bridge; restore worn down and broken teeth, and to protect a weak tooth from decay.
What Does a Crown Look Like?
A custom-made tooth cap will have a hollow tooth-shaped cap appearance after its placement o a prepared tooth. This is because when the crown gets cemented over the tooth, it completely covers the visible part of the tooth lying above its gum line.
What Are Dental Crowns Made of?
There are various types of materials used to make dental crowns. They include metal, ceramic, porcelain, composite resin, zirconia, and a combination of different materials. When you visit our dentist for crown placement, a number of factors will play a role in choosing the material to make your crown. These factors include:
- Your gum tissue position
- The tooth’s location
- How much exposure does the tooth get when you’re smiling
- The color of adjacent teeth
- What size of the natural tooth remains
Your personal preference will also be considered, and the dentist will weigh its pros and cons before recommending the type that best suits you.
All-Metal Crowns
This type of crown is made of 100% metal, making it the strongest crown available. Due to their thin layer, they require the least dental structure removal during the preparation process, unlike other types of dental crowns. Metal crowns rarely fracture, break, or chip and can withstand chewing and biting forces well since they form strong bonds with teeth. Their biocompatibility properties, single-component construction, and durability are also excellent, making them last long and withstand wear.
The drawback to this type of tooth crown is it lacks a natural-looking aesthetic appearance making it unsuitable for your front teeth. They are, however, ideal for out-of-sight teeth like the molars.
All-Ceramic Crowns
All ceramic or all-porcelain dental crowns are made exclusively of porcelain, a ceramic material. These crowns match the color of teeth, thus offering a natural dental appearance. In addition, the materials used to make the crown give it a glistening, lustrous optical quality generated when beams of light pass through it and get reflected out. All-porcelain crowns are ideal for people with metal allergies or whose front teeth need restoration.
The downside to these dental caps is they fracture easily and require more enamel removal, which weakens the tooth structure.
All-Resin Crowns
Also known as composite resin tooth crowns, all-resin crowns are made from composite resin materials. A dentist will use all resin crowns as a temporary dental cap to protect a filling or a weak tooth until a permanent crown gets manufactured. However, their fragility and inability to withstand biting forces make their use temporary.