How to Ensure that your Dental Crowns Last and Look Beautiful

Restoring teeth in a way that meets patients’ goals for attractive and long-lasting dental care requires careful consideration. While practicing effective oral hygiene at-home and avoiding bad habits that can damage your teeth are essential to making sure your dental crowns last for a lifetime, selecting the best method of restoring your smile starts with our dental office.

Considering Your Needs

Location of Damaged Teeth:  Planning for a crown starts with evaluating the location of teeth in your smile that need to be treated. Molars take a lot of pressure from chewing force and therefore must be restored in a way that can support this continual use, without cracking or breaking the restoration. While crowns placed on molars are made to look life-like, they are not located in your smile zone and do not come with the aesthetic scrutiny that front teeth may get. Anterior teeth, or front teeth, that need crowns must therefore be restored in a way that mimics real dental enamel as closely as possible.

Oral Health Habits: Teeth grinding is a common habit that can damage teeth, requiring that they be restored with a crown. However, providing the best restoration possible means finding a way to prevent similar damage to the crown itself. Other bad habits, such as chewing on hard, inedible items (such as pen caps and fingernails) can damage real teeth and prosthetics.

By taking all of these factors into consideration to build your treatment plan, materials can then be selected that will help limit future wear and tear and look as seamless as possible.

Materials Used for Longevity and Function

Porcelain Fused to Metal - A base of metal with a layer of white or tooth-colored porcelain has long been considered the sturdiest of treatment options. For many patients, PFM crowns are utilized on back teeth, as they provide lasting biting and chewing function, without wearing down as quickly as other, less durable restorative materials.

All-Porcelain - More commonly used in cosmetic restorations, utilizing a dental crown with pure porcelain elements helps achieve a more natural-looking restoration that matches the appearance of natural dental enamel. All-porcelain crowns are excellent choices for anterior teeth in your smile line.

Zirconia - Providing the best of both words, Zirconia is a glass-ceramic combination that matches the luminous quality of your own teeth and is exceptionally strong. Zirconia crowns can be used for patients who are interested in maximum cosmetic appeal and who may be hard on their teeth.

At James T. White, DDS, we work to ensure that your dental crowns provide best possible results for improvements in dental function and are as long-lasting as they are attractive. To learn more about what’s involved in your crown restoration treatment, contact our Berkeley dental office.

How Preventive Care Keeps Your Smile Healthy

Most everyone understands that they need to visit a dentist twice a year, but few take time to think about the importance of routine teeth cleanings and frequent dental visits. Many patients take routine procedures like fillings and crowns to be standard and no cause for concern, but the truth is that needing restorative treatment signals the presence of decay. Preventive dental procedures help to minimize the need for these restorations, so your teeth are healthier for life.

Services that Help Save your Teeth

The foundation of preventive dental care is routine dental office visits, where hygienists clean your teeth, check for signs of periodontal disease, and take x-rays to keep an eye on potential health complications.  Other essential preventive services are:

• Root Scaling and Planing
• Topical Fluoride
• Prescription Strength Fluoride Toothpaste

With root scaling and planning, beginning stages of gum disease can be managed to prevent the development of deep pockets below the gum line. The longer these pockets are left untreated, the higher the likelihood that patients will experience loosening of teeth and lack of foundational support from healthy gum tissue.

To strengthen teeth and protect enamel from decay, patients can also benefit from application of topical fluoride during dental appointments, and the use of at-home extra strength oral care products. When used in conjunction, these treatments can help to stop disease and decay in its tracks and allow your teeth to better ward off bacteria.

Doing Your Part at Home

While visiting the dentist is absolutely essential for your dental health, decay and disease cannot be properly kept at bay unless you are taking care of your teeth at home. Flossing is shrugged off as one of those things that no one does, but neglecting to floss between teeth leaves a whole side of your tooth that isn’t getting cleaned. Worse yet, the spaces between teeth provide bacteria and debris with a great place to hide, opening the door for tooth decay.

You can avoid all of this however, by taking time to brush and floss properly. Dr. White and Dr. Yongue help teach all patients the correct strategy for brushing and flossing at home. If you can protect your teeth from damage, you can avoid the need for costly restorations and further decay.
For more information on how you can keep your teeth healthy, contact our Berkeley dental office.