How Dentists do Crowns
A dental crown is one of the restorative dental procedures. Crowns are usually recommended by dentists when one has teeth with filling that are too large and exceed the structure of a standard tooth. They are, also, a restoration procedure for chipped teeth. There different types of crowns and they include porcelain, resin, ceramic and stainless steel. www.runrex.com, through this article, provides more insight on how dentists do crowns.
Usually, the installation of a new dental crown takes two separate appointments with the dentist. During the first meeting, the tooth to be crowned is prepared by shaping, making the tooth’s impression and the placement of a temporary crown is done. You can expect to receive about half an hour to complete the first dental appointment and have all the involved procedures performed on you.
Before your second appointment, the period separating the two meetings is the time that your dentist will use to fabricate a crown in their dental laboratory. This period often lasts not more than two weeks. The second appointment will come after the end of this period. The appointment usually takes just about 20 minutes and involves the cementing the fabricated crown into place.
The advancement in technology has enabled the innovation of advanced machinery that allows one to undergo the crowning procedure within just one appointment. –
Tooth Crowing Process
Just like most dental procedures, the dentist usually begins by administering you with anesthesia. It serves the purpose of numbing the tooth and the surrounding gum tissue. For persons whose tooth had root canal therapy before, numbing many not be necessary. The gums may, however, be numbed if your dentists see it fit that it be. What follows next is the preparation of the tooth for crowning.
Trimming is the next step the follows after you are numbed. A normal tooth has a particular minimum thickness requirement. It has to be adhered to when preparing the tooth for crowning. The dentist has to make sure that the crown is thick enough to provide adequate strength to the teeth. Most crowns usually have a thickness limit of about millimeters. When doing the trimming, another thing that has to be adhered to is the shape the tooth is supposed to take. It should take on a tapered form to allow the crown to be slipped over it easily. The shape of the tooth is essential in ensuring its stability and retention.
After your dentist is done with the shaping of your teeth, they take an impression of your teeth to get a copy of it. Most dentists use the conventional method of getting your tooth’s impression. This technique involves the use of a patty compound commonly known as “impression material.” An impression of the other teeth, particularly the one that the crown will chew against, needs to be taken too. Your bite impression has to be also taken to ensure that the crown conforms to your bite.
The optical dental impression is the other way of getting the impressions of your teeth. It involves the use of a wand-like camera called intraoral scanner. It is a more advanced technology that dentists used today, though the conventional method is the most popular.
The making of the crown
The processes mentioned up to this point are usually done within just one appointment with the dentist. The molding of the crown happens between the first and second meeting. It is where the impressions that were taken come into play. The impressions are usually sent to the dental laboratory and used to fabricate your crown. The process takes up to two weeks if they are fabricated from a dental laboratory. However, the use of advanced technology allows the fabrication of the crown from the dentist’s office and takes less than two hours. The dentist usually uses a ceramic shade that has the same color as your other teeth.
If you have to wait for the two weeks, you will have to put on temporaries to help protect your tooth and help hold them in their position. The temporaries can be metallic or plastic. They are usually cemented into position using temporary cement for easy removability.
Appointment for crown placement
Once the crown has been fabricated, you can now visit the dentist. The temporary crown is removed, and the remnants of the temporary cement are then thoroughly cleaned off. Once the location is ready, the dentist first evaluates the appearance and the fit of the fabricated crown before they cement it into position. It is just to ensure that the crown looks right. Once the dentist is satisfied with the crown, he/she goes ahead to fit it into position. Crown cement is placed inside the crown first. The crown is then seated over your tooth and left to settle. After a few moments of settling, the dentist will scrape off any excess cement that may have extruded from the inside of the crown.
Once this is done, the crowning process is complete. All that is left is for you to take measures to protect your new crown.