Crowns

A crown is a type of dental restoration which completely caps or encircles a tooth or dental implant and is typically bonded to the tooth using dental cement. If you grind your teeth, have an improper bite, large unsightly fillings or tooth decay then it may be well worth discussing dental crowns with your dentists as these can all be contributing factors in the wearing down, cracking or breakage of your teeth.

How dental crowns can benefit you?

• Dental crowns can dramatically improve the appearance of your teeth.
• Crowns in general add strength to weakened or worn teeth.
• Crowns can replace missing teeth.
• Provides support to misshapen teeth or badly broken teeth.
• Fixes major "smile" and functional chewing problems.
• Looks completely natural. Porcelain crowns or new reinforced resin are considered to be the most aesthetically pleasing as it is easily matched in colour to the surrounding teeth.

A dental crown, also known as a dental cap, is an artificial material used to replace large parts of a tooth or a whole tooth that has been fractured or decayed. Crowns fit over and cover the outside of a tooth starting at the gum line. They can also be used in conjunction with dental implants to replace missing teeth. Dentists at our practice use a technology known as CAD/CAM to produce the crowns used for most of our patients. With the CAD/CAM system, teeth can be restored in a single sitting with the patient, rather than the multiple sittings required with earlier techniques.
The entire procedure takes place under local anesthetic. As the crown is about two millimeters thick, the dentist first shaves this same amount off your existing tooth to avoid awkward-looking, oversized teeth. The dentist will also re-shape your existing tooth into a form upon which a crown can easily sit. Once the existing tooth is prepared your dentist will use a camera to electronically capture and store photographic images of the prepared tooth. The data is then used to craft a 3D design of what your dentist would like your tooth to look like. After selecting the certain features and making various decisions on the computerised model, the dentist directs the computer to send the information to a milling machine located within the surgery. The milling machine uses specially designed diamond burs to mill the restoration from a solid ceramic block in a pre-determined shade matching the former or adjacent teeth. Once the ceramic block has been transformed into the deliberate shape it is polished, fitted and cemented into place.

In some situations a different method could be used, this would involve using a dental impression of a prepared tooth to enable an independent laboratory to fabricate the crown outside of the mouth. The crown would then be inserted at a subsequent dental appointment, approximately 2 weeks afterwards. During this time a temporary plate would be created and worn until the crown was ready for cementation.