I have to get a dental crown on a front tooth. My dentist has the CEREC machine but tells me he won’t use it for front teeth. I don’t understand that. Shouldn’t that be my choice? I’d really like to have it done in just one day.
Carol
Dear Carol,
I think what your dentist is trying to tell you is that it will not look the way you want if you do it on a front tooth. CEREC crowns are milled from a single block of porcelain. That means the crown will be uniform in color. If you look at your front teeth in the mirror, you will notice they are not uniform. The level of translucency changes as you go from the top to the bottom of the tooth.
More light hits your front teeth than others. This means all those subtle differences are more noticeable. If you want a beautiful front tooth, that matches the one next to it exactly, you will be better off letting your dentist do a traditional crown. These are made from several varieties of porcelain, which enables the dentist to shape it with all those varying changes in translucency.
Dental Crowns and Tooth Color
One other thing you need to be aware of is the permanency of color with dental crowns. While they can be made any color you’d like, the color is permanent. Your natural teeth may pick up stains, but the porcelain on your crowns is more stain resistant.
The color they are made is the color they’ll stay.
If you like the current color of your teeth, then no worries. You can move forward, confident you will be happy with the color your dental crown was made. However, if you are considering getting your teeth whitened, the time to do it is before you have your crown made.
If you decide to do teeth whitening later, your natural teeth will whiten, but the dental crown will not. The only way to get it to match your new color is to replace it. Having the whitening done ahead of time will save you money.
This blog is brought to you by East Cobb Dentist Dr. Cristi Cheek.