Protect your teeth with dental crowns

Since we only have one set of permanent teeth that we need to take care of for the rest of our lives to ensure they last, it’s essential to keep them as healthy and unbroken as possible. However, despite your best care, our teeth can become damaged or affected by decay over time.

They can also become chipped and cracked from unconscious grinding while we sleep, or they can simply lose their color, strength, size, or shape.

To preserve or restore your teeth, dental crowns (artificial crowns that are bonded to your teeth) offer a durable, long-lasting solution. Crowns can restore or even improve the origic drvbd’o svlylani xtuqv, rboejx lkn olou xrb eknju its strength, and thus change its overall appearance.

Are you a candidate for dental crowns?

There are several reasons to get a dental crown. Could you be a candidate for a dental crown? If you have any of the following, you are a good candidate for a dental crown:

• A weak, decayed, or cracked tooth that needs to be protected from breakage.
• A broken tooth or a tooth that has been badly worn down.
• A deep, extensive filling that needs to be restored and covered with a crown.
• A dental bridge that needs to be held firmly in place.
• A discolored or poorly shaped tooth.
• A dental implant that needs to be covered with a crown.
• A tooth that has recently undergone a root canal.

If any of these apply to your oral health, please contact our dental experts for a personal consultation and to prepare for the treatment and placement of dental crowns. Your crowns are a permanent restoration solution and match the color of your natural teeth perfectly, so they look and feel natural.

Meanwhile, you can help ensure the longevity of your crowns by avoiding or minimizing some bad oral habits:

Avoid hard foods like ice and hard candy, which can damage your natural crowns.

Avoid tobacco and caffeinated products, which can stain your teeth.

If you grind your teeth, get treatment as soon as possible.

What types of crowns are right for you?

There are many options for crowns, including veneers, composites, and in some cases, dental implants, which are good alternatives for serious tooth damage. All of these can be more conservative solutions that we use when you still have a strong tooth structure. You need less tooth reshaping to hold the crown.

Six Common Types of Crowns

There are different types of crowns for each type of crown material, each with its advantages and disadvantages in an attempt to balance the aesthetics and function of the crown.

E-Max Crowns:

These are all-ceramic crowns made of lithium disilicate and are the best option for patients who care about the aesthetics of their front teeth, along with superior strength compared to other types of crowns. E-max crowns are translucent like real teeth, allowing more light to pass through them, and are an ideal option if you are allergic to metal.

They require less shaping of the underlying tooth, creating a more natural crown, and they do not require staining. E-Max crowns do not require the thickness of other materials and require less natural tooth grinding.

Porcelain Fused Metal-Cemented (PFMC) Crown:

This is one of the oldest types of crowns. In this type of dental crown, we mainly use a highly transparent “feldspathic porcelain” on the outside, on a metal supporting tooth framework. It is used for bridges and limited space areas that do not require high aesthetics but still require high strength,

Zirconia:

The popularity of these crowns has increased greatly compared to the past, as they are the ideal solution for full-mouth restorations, have strength and durability, and meet budget constraints (compared to gold crowns). Used for molars, these types of crowns are ideal solutions for limited space as well as patients who have several broken missing teeth or grind their teeth while sleeping.

Gold:

Although in dentistry in Hamilton, gold crowns are always a mixture of metals, they still represent the *gold* standard due to their performance and durability.

Whether it is a gold crown or PFMC, a gold crown is made up of three different types of metal mixtures: High Noble, Noble, and Base Metal.

High Noble Crown: Must contain at least 60% of the following noble metals: gold, platinum, palladium, and silver, with at least 40% (out of 60%) being gold.

Noble Crown: Must contain at least 25% of noble metals (gold, platinum, palladium or silver).

Base Metal Crown: Has no noble metal content. This typically contains non-allergenic nickel, which some patients are allergic to.

The higher the noble metal content, the better the crown fits and performs

Stainless Steel Crowns (SSC):

As their name suggests, they are highly durable. These stainless steel crowns are usually prefabricated, and not custom-made to fit a patient’s tooth, scoring low on the esthetic scale.

Compact Ceramic: More durable than all-porcelain crowns, this type of crown, like the one used in PFMC, reproduces the best natural color match, resulting in a similar appearance to the patient’s teeth.