While most dental patients are familiar with fillings, dental crowns are less familiar. This article gives a brief overview of dental crowns and how they are used. This article concludes with a description of how dental crowns interact with the proprietary My Smile Imagined process.
Dental Crowns Can Be Used to Provide Structural Support to a Tooth
A dental crown is a cover or cap that is shaped and looks like a tooth. The dental crown is placed over a natural tooth, or the remains of a natural tooth, at and above the gum line. Since dental crowns surround the natural tooth, it can be used in many situations where the structure of the natural tooth is weakened. For example, a cracked tooth or a tooth with a large filling may be capped with a dental crown to hold that tooth together.
Dental Crowns Can Be Used to Replace a Missing Tooth
Dental crowns can also be used to cap dental implants. A dental implant is a metal post implanted into the socket of a missing tooth. A dental crown is attached to the dental implant to replace the missing tooth. This is a fairly common use of dental crowns. There are over 3 million patients with dental implants, with another 500,000 receiving dental implants each year.
Dental crowns can also be used to hold a dental bridge. A dental bridge contains one or more prosthetic teeth to cover a gap formed by one or more missing teeth. The dental bridge is held in place between dental crowns that cap the patient’s natural teeth on either side of the gap of missing teeth.
Dental Crowns Can Be Used to Cover a Discolored or Misshapen Tooth
Because dental crowns surround a natural tooth, they can be used to cover a tooth that is discolored, often due to a root canal. Similarly, a tooth that is misshapen due to trauma or developmental flaws may be covered with a dental crown. These uses of dental crowns are primarily cosmetic dentistry, although a dental crown over a tooth with a root canal may also reinforce the strength of the tooth.
My Smile Imagined and Dental Crowns
My Smile Imagined is a proprietary process that allows a patient to visualize the eventual outcome of dental procedures. Simply, a mold is made of the patient’s natural teeth and a custom model is made to simulate what the patient’s teeth would look like after specific dental procedures. The model can then be worn over the patient’s natural teeth to simulate the appearance of the completed dental procedures. For example, where the dental procedures include dental crowns, the model may show how dental crowns would fill in gaps in the patient’s natural teeth as if a dental implant or bridge had been installed or show how a dental crown would alter the appearance of discolored or misshapen teeth as if those teeth had been covered with a dental crown.
Conclusion
Dental crowns can be used to treat a number of different conditions, including broken or weak teeth, missing teeth, discolored teeth, and misshapen teeth. Used in conjunction with the proprietary My Smile Imagined process, a patient may envision the eventual outcome of the use of dental crowns to treat his or her specific conditions.