So, what is a dental crown and how do we complete them?

Crowns are used to hold teeth together.  If a tooth is very heavily filled or has fracture lines or is a root filled or has all three then a crown finishing on healthy tooth structure will hold the above the gum section of the tooth intact from biting forces.  They act a bit like thimbles do – although a lot more tooth coloured and shaped! We first take some impressions for our Adelaide based dental laboratory to make an impression tray that just fits you.  Most ordinary trays are very average and not so accurate!

Then we prepare the tooth so the dental crown will fit onto healthy tooth structure.  This does take a bit of fiddling to get the shape exactly right sometimes.  Once we are happy with the shape then we will either take a very accurate impression or we will use the scanner that takes a lot of pictures of your teeth and knits them together for an electronic impression.  Then we will construct a temporary crown to temporarily cement over the top of the shape we have made.

The impressions are then sent to the dental laboratory for a plaster model or a 3D printed model.  The plaster model is scanned by the laboratory, a design made and a crown is milled.  With the electronic scan this goes straight into the computer design and the milling machine then mills the crown.  Once the crown is milled it is trimmed and adjusted using the models, colours added if need be, glazed and returned to your dentist.  At our next appointment the crown is fitted to the shape we had prepared and if it fits correctly, looks good and feels good it is cemented more permanently onto the tooth.  Then you have a tooth that is much stronger than the heavily filled and cracked tooth you had before.  It also looks better, but that is a different newsletter altogether and usually not what we did the process for!

Now that we are in September it is a good idea to plan to use your health insurance prior to the end of the year.   This could mean that the crown you were thinking of doing this year needs a plan now.  Please book appointments now before we run out of available places for treatment before Christmas.

We hope you have all survived the cold and rainy weather and are ready to support our fabulous local businesses at the Royal Adelaide Show.  There are even tooth brushes in the Yellow Brick Road Showbag.  Dr Stone can’t wait to check them out!  But in saying that we have a large array of soft tooth brushes both plastic based (that we can recycle through Terracycle for you) and bamboo ones.  There are also interproximal brushes that are plastic recyclable or bamboo as well. It is also winter sport finals time so good luck to all those involved whether as players, supporters or volunteers! Please wear your mouthguard in all contact sports.  We can repair broken teeth but it is always best if they aren’t broken in the first place.

See you in the clinic!  The Adelaide City Dental Care Team. PS:  check out our socials (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram) for top tips for teeth, mouth and gums and dental family snaps!  Maybe even the latest video on YouTube.

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