Crowns

Crowns, commonly referred to as “caps”, are dental restorations that cover over and entirely encase the visible portion of the tooth to which they are cemented. In comparison, fillings only fill in or cover a small portion of a tooth. Crowns last for decades and look beautiful.

There are several reasons why a tooth needs a crown:
1. To strengthen a tooth. A tooth that has lost 50% or more of its coronal tooth structure is very weak, even when filled with the best fillings materials available. We usually recommend that a heavily-filled or decayed tooth be crowned before it collapses.

2.To restore a tooth to its original shape. A tooth that is broken or that is very worn down from years of grinding is often flattened and ineffectual at chewing. A crown would be the ideal method of restoring a tooth’s anatomy to provide an efficient chewing surface and very aesthetic result.

3.To improve the cosmetic appearance of a tooth. A crown encases the entire visible of a tooth and can therefore be used to idealize the cosmetic appearance of a tooth. Crowns can correct cosmetic problems such as discolouration, crowding and poor alignment, and aberrations in size and shape of a tooth.

4.To stop the progression of Cracked Tooth Syndrome (CTS). A cracked tooth initially presents with a sudden sharp pain when biting down, which immediately subsides once you release the biting pressure.

It may not be painful every time you bite, just when you bite into certain things at certain angles. Chewing on nuts or grain bread will often cause sharp jabs of pain in teeth with cracks. Often cold, hot or sweet things will also stimulate pain in a cracked tooth.

A crack in a tooth is like a crack in your windscreen. It only gets bigger not smaller.

A crown acts like a splint to hold the crack in the tooth together, protecting the tooth against biting forces, thus preventing the progression of the crack further down into the tooth.

If the tooth is not crowned, the crack can progress towards the “nerve” of the tooth, causing it to become inflamed and resulting in the need for root canal therapy or even need to be removed.

So, what types of crowns are there and how do you decide which type of crown is best for your tooth? To best determine which type of crown you need, we will need to perform a thorough assessment of your teeth, your bite and your smile. However, the following will give you a good guideline.

All-Ceramic Crowns: Empress, Lava, Procera or Zirconia  crowns containing no metal at all are the most aesthetic and beautifully life-like restoration. We generally use all-ceramic crowns in aesthetically critical areas, for front teeth and premolars.

Porcelain-fused-to-Gold Crowns: For molars, we generally recommend a porcelain-fused-to-gold crown. The gold core provides strength against the heavy biting forces that a molar must withstand, whilst the porcelain exterior affords excellent aesthetics.

Full Gold Crowns: A full gold crown is the strongest crown of all. In severe clenchers and grinders, and in out-of-sight positions, a full gold crown is often the longest lasting choice.
Rarely the porcelain part of a Porcelain fused to gold crown can be damaged.This may not compromise your natural tooth below but it can cause sharp irritating edges or food to get caught between your teeth. If your crown is not in a position where the appearance is critical, it can often be resurrected by removing all the porcelain and bonding a new full gold crown to the remaining gold from the original crown.