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Treatment for Restoring Your Tooth: Crowns

Your smile is what lights up your face. But damaged teeth may make you feel too self-conscious to smile. If you have a single damaged tooth, your doctor may recommend a crown. Read on to learn more about this treatment option.

What Is a Crown?

A crown is used to restore a damaged tooth to its normal size and shape. It may be made of gold, other metal, porcelain, or porcelain fused to metal. If your crown will be visible when you smile, your dentist will try to match it to the color of nearby teeth.

Dental crown placement illustration showing a tooth receiving a restoration between two natural teeth.

The crown is adjusted for fit. Then it is cemented into place.

What to Expect During Treatment

Your treatment experience may be as follows:

Preparing your tooth. A crown needs to be the same size as the original tooth. Your dentist will make the damaged tooth smaller for the crown to fit over. Then an impression of the prepared tooth and the opposing tooth will be taken.
Between visits. It will take 1-3 weeks for a lab to make your permanent crown. To protect the prepared tooth during that time, you may have a temporary crown. Keep your mouth extra clean during this time. To avoid pulling off the temporary, pull floss out sideways, not straight up or down. And avoid sticky foods. If the temporary does come off, ask your dentist whether you should secure it back in place with denture adhesive until you can visit the office.
Fitting your crown. At your follow-up visit, your dentist removes the temporary crown and puts on the permanent crown. He or she checks the fit. After making adjustments, the dentist cements the crown into place. If you have any problems with the crown later, call your dentist.

When to Call Your Dentist

If any of these problems occur at any point, call your dentist:

The crowned tooth hurts or feels sensitive to heat, cold, or biting pressure
The crown chips, comes loose, or falls out
The gums at the base of the crowned tooth swell, bleed easily, or get red or tender