Are Dental Crowns Permanent?

Your teeth are incredibly essential for your health and happiness. Conversely, a damaged or decayed tooth causes physical and mental strife. Dental crowns are widespread and practical techniques to fix various issues with your teeth.

While you may have heard about dental crowns, you may need more information on how they function and what you can expect from them if suggested one by a dentist near you. This article looks at the process of getting a dental crown providing information about their functionality and how long they last.

What Are Dental Crowns?

Dental crowns are custom-made restorations similar to hollow tooth-shaped caps placed over a reshaped natural tooth. When bonded over a natural tooth, crowns entirely encase the visible portion of the tooth lying below it and above the gum line.

Besides encasing damaged or decayed teeth, dental crowns serve many other purposes making them essential to restore the tooth’s strength, functionality, shape, and size to improve its appearance.

When might you need a dental crown?

Situations when you might need a dental crown include:

• You have a tooth weakened from tooth decay or cracked and need help to protect it by holding it together.
• You need to replace an old, broken, or failing tooth filling.
• You want to restore an already broken tooth.
• Teeth grinding has shortened your tooth, making a dental crown essential.
• To encase and support a tooth with extensive fillings and without natural tooth structure remaining.
• You need aesthetic improvements to your smile by closing gaps between your teeth and reshaping an uneven tooth.

Besides, the above crowns also help hold dental bridges in place and cover dental implants. Crowns also become necessary to restore the strength of a tooth that has recently undergone root canal treatment.

If you have missing teeth, the gaps in your mouth will cause the surrounding teeth to drift toward the blank space causing malocclusion, which can adversely affect your diet. The missing tooth also causes jawbone deterioration and TMJ disorders, making it essential to discuss replacement solutions such as implants or bridges with dentist 92131 instead of leaving the gaps between your teeth.

Different Versions of Dental Crowns

Different materials help make dental crowns to cover your damaged, broken, decayed, or missing tooth. Therefore you will need a consultation with dental crowns in San Diego, CA, to determine which version best suits your needs. The consultation involves evaluating your gum structure and bone to determine its health and assess which version of the dental crown is best for your needs.

The dentist nearby considers various factors when recommending any specific version as optimal for your needs, including the tooth’s location, the damage’s severity, your aesthetic preferences, your budget, insurance coverage, et cetera, before suggesting an option suitable for your needs.

Dental crowns customized using porcelain and ceramic is the most popular because they appear like your natural tooth and are considered attractive. These options are excellent for patients with metal sensitivities and are generally expected to last for over a decade.

You can even have metal crowns customized from stainless steel or gold if you have a damaged molar and are not concerned about showing them off when opening your mouth or speaking. Therefore your dentist will suggest the best possible option to encase your tooth after discussing your needs and considering the abovementioned factors to benefit your dental health.

Dental Crowns: Are They Permanent?

Dental crowns are durable restorations for your teeth that may have suffered damage or been through various situations. Crowns remain over your tooth as a long-lasting solution. However, while crowns are durable, they are not permanent. You can expect a dental crown over your tooth to serve you for between five and 20 years. You can extend the longevity of the restoration by practicing excellent dental hygiene, adopting safeguards against bruxism, and avoiding detrimental mouth-related habits like biting fingernails, chewing ice, and using your teeth as tools for purposes other than chewing or eating.

Although the crowns are restorations over your tooth, they need care like your natural teeth, including exams and cleanings every six months to ensure you do not allow dental plaque to accumulate around the crown to protect the underlying natural tooth. In addition, not maintaining good oral hygiene habits or adopting safeguards to protect the crowned tooth makes the underlying tooth susceptible to infections that might need crown replacements faster than you imagine. Therefore if suggested a dental crown to cover an existing tooth, you must treat the restoration as your natural tooth to safeguard your investment and dental health for as long as possible.

If you have teeth with the situations described earlier and want to restore them, Bliss Dental Arts provides dental crowns in San Diego, helping you protect your teeth with durable restorations. However, as suggested in this article, caring for them is essential to extend their longevity because the restorations don’t remain permanently over your tooth.