All You Need To Know About Dental Crowns
Dental crowns are one of the many ways a dentist helps you restore your teeth to their natural state. However, these dental restorations are typically used when a tooth has a large filling exceeding the natural tooth structure. In addition, a dentist may advise you to get a dental crown if you previously had canal therapy, or a combination of a root canal and dental filling. You can get a dental crown for cosmetic reasons too. For instance, you can get a gold dental crown, for an extra sparkle in your smile. Here is what you should expect in a typical dental crown procedure. Dental Crown Procedure First, the dentists start by applying local anesthetic near the tooth that requires a crown. Even if you've had a root canal and the nerve endings in that tooth are dead in a sense, the dentist will still use an anesthetic. The instruments used to get the crown in place come close the gingivitis tissue making anesthesia necessary.
After numbing your gum, the dentist then fabricates the dental crown using the arches of your maxillary and mandibular arches. This is a major step because the crown must match your dental structure to the highest degree. Depending on the crown chosen, the dentist may also match several aspects of your teeth. For example, if you go with a full ceramic or porcelain fused meal crown, the dentist must match the color shade of your teeth. However, for other crowns, such as gold crowns, this is not necessary. While the dentist prepares the crown, the dental assistant works on alginate impressions for both your upper and lower dental arches. These impressions are poured into a mold, to get a stone impression of your teeth. The mold is what the dentist uses to create a precise crown for your teeth Nevertheless, since the crown takes quite some time to fabricate, the dentist prepares a temporary crown you can use before the permanent one arrives from the laboratory. He makes a little impression of the teeth in the same area as the tooth that needs a crown, as well as an impression of the opposing arch. These impressions are used to prepare the temporary crown. However, if you need a crown for your front teeth, the dentist may ask you to go to the laboratory so that the technicians there can get a shade of your surrounding teeth. The dental crown is a hollow imitation of your tooth and fits into your tooth like a cap. However, it is made such that it fits around the tooth securely keeping out bacteria and other debris from the real tooth. While waiting for the dental crown, the dentist may place a rubber dam over the tooth to hold securely in place old filling material and tooth structure. The rubber dam also keeps water from dripping into your mouth. Then the dentist proceeds to prepare your tooth for the crown. This involves chipping away precise amounts of the tooth and filling material from the tooth. If tooth decay is discovered during this process, the decay is removed, and a composite core is placed on the tooth. The crown is then placed, thus your new tooth.