When You Need a Dental Crown

Hearing you need a dental crown may not be the news you were hoping for during a visit to your Palm Springs dentist at the Tahquitz Dental Group. But here’s the good news in this good news/bad news equation — getting a crown means the tooth can be saved! Add a crown and you don’t need to pull the tooth. When the choice is saving a tooth or having a hole in your jaw, getting a crown starts to sound a lot better!

Dental Crowns Solve Serious Problems

A dental crown becomes necessary for a number of different reasons. In all cases, the tooth has a root that is still viable. (That means the root is strongly connected to the jawbone and has sufficient strength to support bite forces.) What happened to the tooth to require a crown could be any one of the following problems:

• Trauma damaged the natural crown.
• Excessive wear (from teeth grinding or chewing objects, for example) ruined the tooth
• Damage caused by oral jewelry
• Infection weakened the tooth enamel

In each of these cases, the problem is the natural crown of the tooth can no longer withstand biting, which leads to toothache. By adapting the tooth to accept an artificial crown, or “cap”, the tooth is preserved and can be put back to work, without pain.

Materials for Dental Crowns

Although they are still available, most of our clients do not choose gold or silver alloyed crowns. Materials technology is so advanced that matching the specific color or your natural teeth is possible through a variety of techniques. Here are some of the most common materials used in crowns:

• Porcelain Fused to Metal (PFM) — Porcelain has long been prized for its ability to color match and fusing an outer porcelain cap to an inner metal framework combines good looks with strength.
• Pressed Ceramic —This material used hardened (pressed) ceramic instead of metal for the core of the crown. The exterior is made of multiple layers of porcelain. This helps mimic the natural translucency of tooth enamel.
• Zirconium — The same material that goes into synthetic diamonds can now go into your mouth! Zirconium is the most popular of the materials used for all-ceramic crowns. All-porcelain or all-ceramic options are the best choice for patients with allergies to metal or who have a history of their body rejecting metallic components that are usually biocompatible.
• Same Day Ceramic — Same-day crowns are carved from small porcelain blocks by an in-house milling machine. The advantage is speed, at the sacrifice of the strength available from the other materials. If you aren’t a tooth grinder and avoid chewing on objects, same day crowns are a perfectly acceptable option for you.

No matter what material you choose with the help of our dental staff, keep in mind that getting a crown saves a tooth. A well-built crown combined with good dental habits can last fifteen years and beyond. If you are suffering from toothache or oral pain, don’t fear getting a crown! Make an appointment to see the dentist at the Tahquitz Dental Group today!