The Best Candidates for Dental Crowns

Dental crowns are a very common procedure used by millions of people. Good candidates for crowns include patients who suffer from bruxism (teeth grinding), those with serious decay, patients with discolored teeth due to fillings, and even those with damaged teeth too.

Not all patients will have crowns recommended to them by a cosmetic dentist, and this is especially the case if the bulk of the tooth can be preserved or restored through another process. If, however, the patient’s teeth are too badly damaged then the crowns tend to be the only alternative.

Crowns are made of gold, porcelain, and porcelain fused to a metal of some kind. They require a portion of the original tooth to be removed prior to a permanent “cap” being fitted into place. Each crown is custom-made according to a mold taken of a patient’s mouth. They tend to fit over the entire tooth and remain just below the gum line. They can usually serve the patient throughout the remainder of their lifetime, but those who have very serious bruxism issues may need to use night guards too.

Today many cosmetic dentists in Minneapolis want to avoid using crowns strictly to enhance the smile, and will instead recommend everything from porcelain veneers and teeth whitening if these procedures might provide equally attractive results. The reason for doing this, instead of the crowns, is simply due to the desire to preserve as much of the original tooth as possible. Of course, this is not always an option and the cosmetic dentist is the only one to know which is the right choice for their patient.

For example, someone who has an old amalgam filling that takes up most of a tooth and seriously discolors it would probably have a crown recommended instead of a new filling. This is because the size of the filling might make it impossible to preserve the remaining natural crown of the tooth.