What Should You Expect During a Dental Crown Procedure?

First, the dentist and the dental assistant will pick a shade for the crown; they will use a shade guide to help them match the color of the rest of your teeth. Once they choose the shade, the dentist will numb you up to feel comfortable and not experience any discomfort throughout the procedure.

Your oral care provider may take a scan of the upper teeth so that they have an impression of the occlusion, which is also known as the bite. If the office does not have a digital scanner, this step will involve impression material.

Preparation Stage

Now, it is time to prep the teeth. Similar to a cavity filling procedure, the decay needs to be drilled out of the tooth. Once your dentist removes all of the decay, then they will prep down the tooth for the crown.

Preparation involves shaping the tooth into a shape that will allow the crown to be a cover or a cap, right on top of it. After the crown prep, the tooth will be shaped to look like a stump. Next, your dentist will use a patch around the gums, or some offices will even use a laser to trove around the gum areas of the tooth.

Your dentist will then take another impression of the prepped tooth. For some patients, this might be the first impression they are taking. For other patients, if they have a partial denture, the dentist will scan the patient's original dentition at the beginning of the treatment before it is prepped and crowned. So that they can make an identical crown shape for the partial denture to fit; however, this step is done in a case by case situation.

Designing the Crown

In this case, the dentist will copy the exact dimensions of the side of the tooth that the partial denture connects.

After designing, the crown is ready to be milled. Your doctor will place a ceramic block into the milling unit machine, which fabricates the ceramic block into a crown to cap your tooth.

The full milling process time usually depends on the unit and the block material used. If your dentist mills their own crowns in-office, you can always ask if it is okay for you to watch the process. Because sometimes the milling machine is in another room, like a lab.

However, the milling time is extra downtime for you to relax your jaw. After milling, your dentist will steam the crown and then bring it back to you for a fit test. Sometimes, depending on the material of the block, they will need to stain and glaze it, put it into a harness to harden it before bringing it to you for fitting and cementation. However, if the material used is already strong and of the correct shade, the dentist will only need to adjust and polish it before cementing the crown onto the tooth in the mouth. Contact Scott Young DDS, to get high-quality dental crowns that will aesthetically enhance your smile.