Dental Crowns and Decay: What Our Phoenix Patients Need to Know
Tooth decay can spread rapidly and make teeth very weak. The larger the cavity, the more compromised the tooth becomes. Sometimes a filling isn’t enough to restore its strength. Your dentist may recommend a crown, which is a cover (or cap) that’s placed over your natural tooth to protect it. It’ll prolong the life of your tooth so that you’ll be able to chew hard things that may have otherwise traumatized your weak, natural tooth.
While dental crowns work great for saving and protecting our teeth, they have to be properly taken care of so that they last their intended time and that your natural tooth – as well as neighboring ones – stay healthy.
Where Does Tooth Decay Develop?
Decay can quickly develop on the neighboring natural teeth beside your crown. This is most common when someone doesn’t floss like they should. A standard toothbrush doesn’t remove enough plaque from between your teeth, so it’s important not to neglect flossing regularly.
Since dental crowns are restorations, they themselves can’t develop a cavity. However, it’s important to remember that a crown is merely a cover for your natural tooth. Meaning that it’s still possible to develop decay around the edges of them. The only treatment to restore the natural tooth would be to remove the crown (rendering it useless), clean up the cavity, and cement a new crown over the area. In this case you’re looking at spending more money, on what was already quite an investment to protect your tooth.
The area where your crown meets the tooth along the gums is called the margin. This is a common area for decay to develop. Germs and bacteria can seep into your tooth at the gum line if not cleaned regularly and spread quickly. Since the crown covers the tooth, detecting decay can be very difficult. Especially when it’s a small amount.
Ensuring Your Phoenix Crown Stays Healthy
This is one of the reasons why it’s important to visit our Phoenix dentist frequently. When you come in for regular checkups, one of our registered dental hygienists thoroughly cleans around the crown to help prevent any decay from developing on your tooth. We also ensure that your restored tooth is healthy and that the crown is in good condition by performing an exam to check for soft places (decay) around the margin. Dental x-rays show us areas that we can’t see with the naked eye.
Same Day Dental Crowns in Phoenix
If you’ve had a crown come off, it could be because there’s decay present. You may need to get it cleaned up and have a new restoration made. Central Valley Dentistry in Phoenix, AZ offers state of the art technology for making same day crowns. Thanks to CEREC, Dr. Babak Behbahani can prep, design, make, and cement your new crown in one day. A procedure that used to take weeks and multiple appointments now only takes a couple of hours. Call us today at (602) 246-0385 to get started!
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