For many patients, a dental crown can be an effective option for preventing a tooth from needing to be extracted. While dental crowns are both extremely common and highly effective, dental patients will often be very uninformed about the particulars of dental crowns. 

Will A Healthy Tooth Ever Require A Crown?

Dental crowns are a treatment that is most commonly used to address a variety of structural problems with teeth. As a result, it would be extremely rare for a patient to need a dental crown for a tooth that is healthy. When this is needed, it is often to correct developmental issues that have left the tooth misshapen. In these situations, a crown may be the more durable option when compared to using dental bonding or other treatment options.

What Happens If The Crown Fails?

A major advantage of having a dental crown is that it is an extremely reliable repair procedure. However, there is still a chance that the crown could eventually fail. When this happens, you will want to preserve the crown and visit your dentist at the earliest possible opportunity. The tooth will be highly vulnerable to suffering damage and decay until the crown is returned. Depending on the original damage that the crown was correcting, there may also be considerable discomfort until the crown is restored. Fortunately, dentists will typically treat a failed crown as an emergency, which can make it easier to be quickly scheduled in for an appointment.

Will A Crown Impact Adjacent Teeth?

The placement of a dental crown should have minimal impacts on the neighboring teeth. In some instances, there may be a need to remove a small amount of enamel from the neighboring teeth to make room for the crown, but this is usually limited to patients that have dental crowding or other issues that could cause the teeth to be closer together than normal.

Is It Noticeable When A Person Is Wearing A Crown?

It is common for dental crowns to be placed on commercially important teeth. Dental crowns are an extremely discrete treatment for a patient to receive. In most instances, it will be almost impossible for the crown to be noticed unless someone is performing a close examination of the tooth. It should be noted that the color of the dental crown will be permanent, which makes it important to follow sound practices to reduce dental staining of your natural teeth. Otherwise, a slight discrepancy in the color of the crown and the natural teeth may develop over the years that you wear it, which will require whitening procedures to correct.