|
Question:
New Crown, Questionable Technique: A few months ago I had a gold crown put on my lower jaw, clear to the back, on my left side.
While putting the crown on, the dentist said he needed to grind down the tooth above the crown to get the crown to fit properly. The tooth above was a good, non crowned tooth.
I thought this was strange at the time because I have had numerous crowns and no one ever ground on a good tooth to get the crown to fit.
Now I may be having trouble (pain in that area) with the tooth that the dentist ground on. Is it normal practice to grind on a good tooth to get a crown to fit? ...Visitor from CO
Answer:
At times an upper tooth may extrude or come down a little bit over time especially if the
tooth below had a dental filling that wore down over the years.
As the lower tooth wears, the upper tooth that's right above will tend to extrude. When the
tooth finally has a protective crown/cap made, the tooth is a bit shorter to begin with, due to wearing down over many years.
The dentist can only reduce this lower tooth only so much before it gets too short and
loses retention or the crown preparation gets too close to the nerve which can cause the need for a root canal.
Another reason the upper tooth can extrude is that the lower plastic temporary crown can wear a bit
thus causing the upper tooth to drop down a bit. This is common when a patient wears a temporary crown for too long a time.
When the appointment for the crown insert arrives, the lower crown feels high because the upper
tooth has dropped down a bit. Now one or two things can be done to adjust the crown so that it fits
normally.
The new crown can be adjusted or the upper tooth which is hanging down can be adjusted a bit. At
times both teeth are adjusted to make the crown fit normally.
If the crown is a porcelain to metal crown, the dentist usually trys to avoid grinding the crown too much as he/she may go through the porcelain on the biting surface, thus exposing the metal substructure underneath.
If the bottom crown is made of all gold, the dentist trys not to grind right through the top
exposing the real tooth. If this happens, bacteria can seep into the tooth and decay can start.
Ideally a crown should go in with no adjustments at all. In the real world most crowns need a little adjustment before they are cemented. It is unfortunate that your upper tooth may
be sensitive. If the sensitivity does not go away, your dentist may need to place a small
restoration in that upper tooth to quell the discomfort.
ComfortableDental.com
Ron Briglia, DMD
Chester County Medical Building
600 East Marshall Street, Suite 201
West Chester Pennsylvania PA 19380
(610) 692-4440
Return to Crowns FAQ - Part D
| Metropolitan Area Crown Doctors: |
|
Return to FAQ Index
You also have the option of using Google search technology to conduct a specific search within our databases to find more specific information. Use key words or short phrases:
|
|
