What is a Crown?

A crown fits over your tooth like a thimble fits over your finger, or a stocking cap fits over your head. By surrounding the entire tooth, a crown will hold together even the most fragile tooth structure.

To make room for a crown, the dentist must shave away all of the enamel, and reduce the bulk of your tooth by 2 millimeters all around.

After the dentist shaves the tooth down, he/she makes a model of the tooth with a putty-like substance and you leave the office that day with a temporary crown made of plastic. Then the model is sent to a lab man who makes the Crowns out of gold or porcelain fused to metal. The temporary crown will last about 3-4 weeks while your crown is being made. When you return to the dentists office, he/she removes the temporary crown and if the new permanent crown fits well, it is cemented in place.

Crowns may be the only way to save certain highly damaged teeth. They will last 12 - 20 years and in all aspects, they will function exactly like your natural tooth. They can be made of gold or porcelain , or both. There are certain circumstances, such as the very last molars in the back, where gold crowns are the most long lasting choice. You just can't beat gold crowns for longevity. Every once in a while, we see an elderly person who has a gold crown that is still servicable after 40 years. The patient has to weigh the longevity issue against their interest in having all white, natural looking teeth.

ARE THERE ALTERNATIVES TO CROWNS?

In 2002, we came across a technology that will one day replace the process of conventional crowns. With this new technology since 2003, we rarely do crowns. In fact, 90% of the time, we can help our patients avoid crowns by using this new technology called CEREC.  

HERE IS A SAMPLE OF CEREC RESULTS:

BEFORE                                                               AFTER

For hundreds of years, crowns have been the only way to restore teeth with fractures and/or large fillings. Twenty years ago, however, a scientist and a dentist invented an entirely new method for restoring highly damaged  teeth many without crowns. They developed a technology they called CEREC. In our practice, we used to do 2 to 4 crowns each day. Now we only do that many in a month. Rather than crowns, at Fiddlehead Dental we use the CEREC technology to restore teeth with "porcelain puzzle pieces", thereby preserving as much of the good enamel as possible. .

WHEN ARE CROWNS THE BEST CHOICE?

Crowns are excellent restorations if the dentist does not have CEREC technology. Most dentists don't - Only about 9% of the dentists in the U.S. use CEREC. This may be because it is a very large investment for the dental practice or because it has a very long and challenging "learning curve". Some dentist assume that since the restorations are made of porcelain, that they will break more frequently than crowns. We just haven't seen this in our office. In our first four years with CEREC, we placed more than 3000 restorations and we saw no more problems with CEREC predictability than we did with crowns.

Aside from allowing us to save all the healthy enamel, our patients most appreciate the fact that a CEREC restoration can be completed in one visit with very little patient stress. CEREC procedures simply do not feel like an ordeal. Most of our patients who have had crowns would never want to go back to that after they have experienced CEREC. Our web page labeled "Testimonials" can give you some idea of our patients’ appreciation for this technology leap. Check it out!