If you sustain damage to a tooth, your dentist will likely recommend treating the issue with a dental crown. This treatment involves a ceramic cap that fits over a vulnerable tooth. It seals into place with dental cement, providing long-lasting protection and enhancement to the affected tooth.
You can feel more confident when undergoing this procedure if you understand some of the benefits that the crown can offer you. Read on to see four of the many ways that a dental crown can enhance the look, structure, and health of your smile.
How Can a Dental Crown Help My Smile?
Replace Weakened Tooth Enamel
Your teeth have a hard outer layer called enamel which offers protection to the vulnerable interior. Though it can withstand a great deal, over time, enamel may wear down or erode. Sometimes this can occur due to factors outside of an individual’s control, like aging.
But once gone, enamel cannot regrow on its own. This can leave your smile at a higher risk of cavities and other dental dangers. You might also feel tooth sensitivity pain as stimulation reaches the interior of the tooth.
Your dentist can treat enamel loss by replacing the enamel with a dental crown. This fixture shields the tooth as enamel would, keeping the tooth healthy and safe and alleviating sensitivity pain.
Repair Broken Teeth
Teeth are strong and can experience wear and tear from chewing on a regular basis. But abnormally high pressures can cause a tooth to chip, crack, or fracture. This type of dental injury disrupts the appearance of your smile and heightens the risk of infections, decay, and other issues.
Tooth breakage can worsen without treatment, so you should see your dentist to repair a broken tooth as soon as you can. A dental crown can restore the shape of the tooth while also creating a seal so that dental dangers cannot harm it any further.
Support Other Dental Treatments
Dental crowns offer effective restorative treatment on their own, but they can serve as support for other procedures too. For instance, a crown can act as a prosthetic tooth atop a single dental implant.
Dentists will also employ a crown to cover and protect a tooth after drilling away advanced tooth decay when a filling will not provide enough protection. They also use it to keep a tooth preserved and safe after root canal therapy.
Enhance Tooth Color
A dental crown is known for its restorative benefits, but it can also improve the way that your tooth appears as well. Dentists build crowns on a personalized basis for each patient, so they can count on a beautiful and natural-looking finish. With this approach, the dentist can factor in the patient’s aesthetic goals too.
A crown can fit over a tooth and make it appear brighter if it has suffered major discoloration. This treatment is effective for teeth that have deep stains or severe dullness to their color. The ceramic material will resist staining, so you can experience long-lasting smile enhancement.