Just how good are dental crowns?

There are some fancy new dental treatments on the market that you may not be familiar with yet, but crowns is not one of them. Crowns have been around for generations, and represent one of the most tried and tested forms of treatment in your dentist’s toolkit.

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. First and foremost, what’s a crown, and how does your dentist put it in place?

Well, by and large, the dental crown is a treatment that your dentist uses if he wants to radically improve the appearance of a tooth (possibly due to discolouring from wine, tobacco or tea) or the structural integrity of a tooth (possibly due to a large cavity or accidental damage).

Your dentist may also choose to use a dental crown as part of a root canal treatment – rather than a filling. In cases where the tooth just wouldn’t hold a filling big enough to repair the damage, the crown is the more effective and more frequent choice of treatment.

Do they look like my real teeth?

One of the really big plus points from having a crown put in place is that it’s virtually impossible to spot it. Your dentist makes sure that it looks exactly like your existing teeth – down to the same size, shape and colour. So unless you decide to tell everybody you have a crown, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll spot it.

And because it’s such a common form of treatment these days, the chances are that lots of your family and friends also have a crown – or multiple crowns, but perhaps you haven’t looked closely enough to spot it?

How do dental crowns work in practice? 

Probably the most frequent reason your dentist will opt for a crown is where a tooth may have been filled a number of times, and simple doesn’t have the structural integrity any more to accommodate an even bigger filling. A dental crown – or tooth crown, as it’s also called – means that an outer layer (or crown) will now provide the vital level of support that the struggling tooth is craving.

One of the really big benefits of using a crown is that it’s a particularly strong and reliable form of treatment. You can bite into pretty much any type of food you like, confident that it won’t buckle under the strain.

Sometimes, your dentist will be using the crown where there is bad discolouration, and in this instance, you get the benefit of a tooth that not just looks great, but also performs brilliantly in everyday use. If you want to make sure that you don’t end up shelling out on a crown due to discolouration, maybe now is the time to give up smoking – one of the most common reasons for staining – as well as cutting down on red wine and tea, which also do their fair share of damage.

How are they fixed?

The crown is fixed in place over your existing tooth – hence the term ‘crown’. And to make sure that it doesn’t come loose when you bite into something hard, it’s fixed in place with a special type of dental cement, which gives a really reliable and dependable bond that simply won’t let you down – no matter what task you ask your crown to perform.

The big benefits

There are a number of important and complementary benefits to consider if you feel you might benefit from a crown. The most common of these are as follows:

• Dental crowns are a solution that should last you a lifetime.
• They’re very durable and they feel just like your normal teeth.
• They cost less than you think – especially if you avail of our 0% Dental Finance, which lets you spread the cost over an agreed number of months.
• A tooth crown puts off the horrible prospect of having a tooth extracted – something which we’re very slow to do here at MyDental.

Are we confusing you in any way?

We try to keep our articles as simple as possible, but if we ever confuse you in terms of the dental terminology we use, here’s a handy glossary of terms courtesy of the Irish Dental Association website – http://www.dentist.ie/your-oral-health/glossary-of-dental-terms.5622.html