The Many Roles of a Dental Crown

A dental crown is a tooth-shaped cap that fits over your existing tooth so that you can keep your natural roots and tooth base. Dental crowns can be custom-designed to match your natural tooth shape and color. Crowns consist of various materials, based on your need and budget, including:

• Gold
• Palladium
• Nickel
• Chromium
• Porcelain-fused-to metal
• All-ceramic or porcelain
• All-resin
• Pressed ceramic

Metal-based crowns, which are the most durable, are best on back molars, where they aren’t visible. Porcelain and porcelain-fused-to metal are the most natural looking crowns. Resin crowns are the most cost-effective and the least liable to damage surrounding teeth.

At Miracle Smile Dental in Aubrey, Texas, expert dentist Nisha Modi, DMD, and our team offer dental crowns to suit all needs and budgets. We help you choose the best crown selection to restore your smile.

When you receive a crown for functional or aesthetic reasons, we first need to modify the tooth it will cover. That entails reshaping the tooth to make enough room to accept the crown. We then create a mold of the reshaped tooth and order a crown from the lab that matches the shape of the tooth it replaces and the color of surrounding teeth.

Why would you need a crown, and what do they do? Following is a list of the many different roles of a dental crown.

Restores or protects a damaged tooth

When you chip or crack a tooth, you may be able to repair the tooth with a simple bonding procedure that fills in the gap or builds up the missing portion of the tooth with a hard resin material. However, if the chip, crack, or breakage is too severe, we recommend a crown.

The dental crown provides a strengthening cap that protects the tooth from further damage. Shaped like a whole, perfect tooth, it also restores the look of your damaged tooth to preserve your beautiful smile.

Covers a misshapen or stained tooth

You may have one or more teeth that are so stained that they don’t respond to professional whitening treatments and always look slightly darker than their surrounding teeth. Or, you may have a tooth that’s twisted or crooked.

A dental crown replaces the stained or abnormally shaped tooth. An advantage is that a crown is stain resistant so it won’t become discolored over time, as a natural tooth might.

Restores chewing surface

If you clench your jaw frequently or have a nighttime tooth-grinding habit called bruxism, you may have worn down the chewing surface on your molars. Flattened molars aren’t as efficient in tearing food apart and reducing it to small, digestible particles.

When you cap a flattened molar, its chewing surface gets restored. You once again have the peaks and valleys characteristic of a healthy molar. 

Covers a cavity

When you have a large cavity, you may wish to cover it with a crown instead of a traditional filling. When fillings are large, they’re prone to falling out. A crown keeps your filling in place and protects your tooth.

Covers a root canal

If the tubes that run from the pulp of your tooth into your roots — known as the root canals — become infected, you need a root canal procedure that removes the infection. To perform a root canal, we open up, clean, and disinfect your tooth.

After a root canal, we stabilize your tooth with a rubbery substance. We then top it with a crown to keep the tooth strong and restore your smile.

Replaces metal fillings

Some older metal fillings contain mercury, which is a neurotoxin. If you’d like to remove old, unsightly metal fillings, we can use a crown to cover and stabilize the newly-filled tooth.

Serves as an anchor for a dental bridge

When you opt for a dental bridge to replace missing teeth, the bridge must be anchored on two sides. We reshape a tooth on either side of the gap to fit it with a crown and attach it to the bridge. The crown stabilizes the bridge and looks like your natural teeth.

Caps a dental implant

Dental implants are the most natural form of tooth replacement because they look and function almost exactly like actual teeth. A dental implant consists of an artificial root made of titanium, which must first fuse with your jaw. Once the implant is stable, we cap it with a custom-designed crown that matches your other teeth.

If you’re struggling with dental issues and aren’t sure how to solve them, find out if a crown is right for you by contacting our Miracle Smile Dental team at 469-765-3567 or use our convenient online booking tool to make an appointment.