Questions about dental crown?

I am planning to get a crown for one of my front tooth. This tooth broke from the middle a long time ago when I was a kid. I never had any problem with it, except that it's a bit uneven. My girlfriend wants me to crown it, but I have some concerns.


1. Will it affect the health of the teeth?


2. How long does the crown stay? what if it comes off?


3. Can I decide later to get rid of the crown permanently?


4. After the crown is put in place, will I be able to do everything that I can do now? Is there any restriction on that?


5. Can I put braces (or invisaligns) on crowned teeth?





My other front tooth is a bit long. Is there some way to make it short so that the two are of same size? If so, how? Again, is there any risk associated with that? Currently my teeth are in good health (although they are not in the perfect shape and size), so I am worried if that will change if I go for crown etc.





Thanks for any help.

Questions about dental crown?
Instead of a crown, have you considered a veneer? Normally crowns are used for teeth that have had a root canal on them and often times, the existing tooth has to be filed down to fit the crown. I personally think veneers look more natural and will easily be able to compare to the tooth next to it.





Braces can be put on crowns. My son had this done recently. There are normally not too many restrictions with crowns and what you eat or do, but like I said, I prefer the look of veneers.
Reply:Your dentist will not crown your front teeth. What he will recommend is veneers for both front teeth. Your natural fronts will be shortened so the veneers can fit over them. The dentist secures these veneers with a special binding and heat. I have very brittle front teeth and was worried they might crack, so I had veneers. They look so much better than than before and match my other teeth perfectly !!! Here's the catch.... insurance does not pay, and I paid $900.00 .
Reply:Dentist do crowns different ways but this is the way I was trained and the way we did them, we took an impression with alginate, (This is very soft and gooey and it will set up or harden in just a few minutes) Then the Dentist will numb your tooth, they use a shade guide to match up your teeth, the Dentist will prep your tooth, ( this is where he cuts your tooth down the best way I can explain it is it will look like a peg.) you will rinse out really good and if your gums are bleeding sometimes they have to use a piece of cord which has an astringent to stop the bleeding, this is packed around the base or gumline of the tooth for about three minutes, when the Dentist takes the cord out he rinses the astringent off of the tooth then he will dry the tooth off. The assistant will fill an impression syringe and another impression tray with another type of impression material, the Dentist will take the syringe and place the impression material at the gumline and cover the peg and around the surrounding teeth, he/she will then place the filled impression tray in your mouth and it will stay there for approx. 7 minutes until it sets up or hardens, then he will remove it and you will rinse out. Then a temporary crown is made using the first impression, we would dry out the impression and then use a temporary material called Luxatemp we would syringe it into the impression where the tooth you were having crowned was and put the impression back in your mouth, in about 3-4 minutes it will harden, then you trim up the temporary and check your bite to make sure it is good, then the temporary crown is put in with a temporary cement. You wear this approx. 3 weeks ( I worked in a rural area we did not have an in house lab to make our crowns so we had to send them to a lab to have them made, you may go to a Dentist that has a lab in his office and it may not take as long ) When you go back to get your perm, crown the dentist will pop your temprary off and they will clean the tooth off and try in the perm. crown. They will adjust your bite and you will check to see if you like the length and color of your tooth. If you do then it is glued in with a permanent cement. It depends on how you care for your teeth, but they say the crown should last 5-10 years. I have crowns in my mouth that are 15 years old and are in good shape. If the crown comes off you go back to the Dentist and he will re-cement the crown, if it came off due to cement failure, if there is decay or the tooth breaks, more work will have to be done to the tooth. Once you place a crown you can not get rid of it permanently unless you have the tooth extracted. You should be able to function normally with a crown placed it should feel close to natural. I would recommend you think about getting a Vaneer placed on your tooth, the tooth is roughed up a little and permanent impression is taken like above but you keep your tooth structure, the tooth is not cut down like a peg. The color and length are matched up. The Vaneer is a porcelain covering that is chemically bonded to your tooth. They are beautiful and look very natural. There are a couple of things they reccommend you don't do with vaneers like bite on ink pens or any hard outward pulling motion like biting hard taffy etc. If the vaneer comes off just take it back and have it bonded again. I worked for a Dentist for a long time and we did several Vaneers and I can only remember re-bonding one vaneer. Price's are about the same. You can not put braces on a vaneer, so I would suggest if you are going to straighten them do that before you vaneer your tooth, the Dentist can even vaneer your front teeth and your premolars and make your teeth look straight and make them any color you want . You could make a consultation appointment with your Dentist and they can show you examples of both. Good Luck with whatever you decide to do.
Reply:1. no, crowns wont affect the health of your teeth, unless ofcourse, bad dentistry occurs..but a quick question though, your tooth broke from the middle and its still ok? any discoloration? you may have a "dead" tooth there


2. you could choose to have acrylic ( cheaper ) crown, which can last up to 5-7 years or if you wanted to have one that could last you a lifetime..if taken good care of ..you could choose to have porcelain crown.


3.No, you can't get rid of it if you don't want it anymore, because you see, your tooth need to be reduced a little bit to have a crown fitted, so if you don't want this crown in the future...you can just imagine how it will look..


4. one bad thing about crown is that you can't have the strength of a normal healthy tooth anymore.. so you can't and won't be able to use your teeth to open beers, chew on some chicken bones or use it to open nuts...but you can still eat and smile normally :)


5. yes, you can.