Multi-purpose dental crowns offer an excellent way to protect, repair, and enhance your smile. Your Berkley, MI, dentist, Dr. Ron Williamson, helps his patients keep their teeth strong and healthy with these versatile restorations.
Benefits of dental crowns
Your teeth can become weak or damaged from:
- Tooth decay
- Wear and tear related to normal aging
- Grinding or clenching your teeth while you sleep
- Brittleness
- Cracks in teeth
- Trauma caused by a fall, vehicular accident, or blow to the face
- Dental procedures that require removal of a portion of your teeth, such as fillings and root canal therapy
Dental crowns, also called caps, prevent fragile teeth from breaking while restoring them. A broken tooth changes your appearance in an instant and may cause chewing difficulties and pain. Crowns, hollow restorations that fit over the top of teeth, improve the function and appearance of damaged teeth. Once you receive a crown, no one will know that your tooth was damaged.
Crowns wouldn't be very helpful if they cracked every time you took a bite of food. Fortunately, the restorations are made from tough materials that can withstand strong chewing forces. Common crown materials include porcelain, porcelain-fused-to-metal, ceramic, and resin. These materials are tinted to match the shade of nearby teeth to ensure that your crown doesn't look out-of-place in your smile. Crowns are cemented to your teeth and don't move when you bite and chew. The biting forces are evenly distributed over the surface of the crown and don't affect the tooth underneath.
Crowns can also:
- Improve your appearance: They're a good choice if you want to change the shape of a tooth, extend its length, or hide discolorations or other flaws.
- Replace missing teeth: Crowns are key components of dental bridges and anchor the restorations in place. They're also paired with dental implants to completely restore missing teeth. Dental implants are synthetic roots that bond to your jawbone.
- Restore teeth damaged by tooth decay: You may receive a crown instead of a filling during a visit to the Berkley, MI, dental office if decay damages a large portion of your tooth.
Could dental crowns help your smile?
Call your dentist in Berkley, MI, Dr. Ron Williamson, at (248) 399-4455 to schedule your appointment.