Crowns and how they improve your teeth
To make sure you have the best smile possible, you may need a crown to cover a tooth and restore it to its normal shape and size.
A crown is a tooth-shaped “cap” that is placed over a tooth to restore its shape, size and strength, or to improve its appearance.
The reasons you may need a crown include:
- Protecting a weak tooth
- Holding together parts of a cracked tooth
- Restoring an already broken tooth
- Supporting a tooth with a large filling when there isn’t a lot of tooth left
- Attaching a dental bridge
- Covering badly-shaped or severely discolored teeth
- Cover a dental implant
If your dentist recommends a crown, it’s probably to correct one of these conditions.
Your dentist’s primary concern, like yours, is helping you keep your teeth healthy and your smile bright.
How a bridge can bring back your smile even with missing teeth
If you’re missing one or more teeth, it probably affects your smile and you may also notice a difference in chewing and speaking.
But there are options available to help you restore your smile and limit other problems.
For example, a bridge – sometimes called a fixed partial denture – replaces missing teeth with artificial teeth.
Bridges help maintain the shape of your face, as well as reducing the stress in your bite by replacing missing teeth.
They literally bridge the gap where one or more teeth may have been previously.
The restoration can be made from gold, alloys, porcelain or a combination of these materials and it is bonded onto surrounding teeth for support.
Bridges can be removable so that you can take them out and clean them or fixed and so can only be removed by a dentist.
An implant bridge attaches artificial teeth directly to the jaw or under the gum tissue.
Your dentist will recommend which approach is best for you.
Whatever type of bridge you choose, its success depends on its foundation. So it’s very important to keep your remaining teeth healthy and strong.