Improving your smile is a life-long process, but some upgrades can give you a sparkling new look in just a few hours. Same-day crowns are a great option for dealing with minor but visible damage to any of your teeth. While standard crowns are made in a lab and take a few days to a few weeks before they’re installed, rapid processing is available to get crowns in your mouth the same day you get your teeth prepared for them. Crowns not only restore the appearance of your smile, but they can also help protect the previously damaged teeth from further chipping, cracking, and decay.
When are Crowns Recommended?
If you have a perfectly healthy smile with no alignment issues, it’s unlikely that you need crowns. However, most people have at least one issue with their teeth that they’d like to solve. Crowns are great for many issues that might cause you to visit an emergency dentist, such as a crack or chip. They can also help change the size, shape, and appearance of a tooth with no damage but which just doesn’t fit in with the rest of the smile. Discolored and stained teeth that don’t respond well to whitening are easily covered up with crowns as well. When you’re not sure if a crown is the right choice for a particular issue, your dentist can easily let you know what they think will work best.
Crowns vs Veneers
Veneers can also do a lot to improve the look of your smile by changing the shape or covering up stubborn stains. However, they aren’t as versatile as crowns. Veneers sit on the front surface of the teeth to improve the appearance without doing much to stabilize the structure. In contrast, crowns cover the entire upper portion of the tooth. They can hide much more extensive damage while also helping stabilize the tooth so further cracking or chipping doesn’t occur. The shaping process to prepare the tooth for the crown also helps reduce stress and decay that could threaten the durability of the tooth later. Veneers can’t do all of that, limiting how useful they are depending on the cause of damage to your smile. If you want a long-term fix for a damaged tooth, the crown is the better choice in most cases.
How Do Same Day Crowns Work?
You start with just a single appointment at your dentist. Depending on the damage, you may even end up seeing an emergency dentist for the repair. Your dentist will assess the damage to the tooth and shape with grinding to remove sharp edges and file down until there’s only solid and undamaged material left. Then the dentist uses an intraoral camera to take accurate photos of your tooth and gum line. This allows for the use of 3D modeling to create the ideal crown shape for fitting the rest of the smile with a natural look. A CEREC machine builds the crown from the computer model, resulting in a device that can be placed on your tooth just 15 to 20 minutes later. Since the machine starts with a small block of material and carves into it, you get the exact fit you need without the long wait for an off-site laboratory to do the work. After the crown is finished, the dentist checks the fit and permanently attaches it to your tooth. It’s not a temporary crown, which is often used to protect the tooth after shaping for a few days or weeks. You get a permanent crown with a much shorter waiting period, getting you back to your normal routine with little interruption.
Benefits of Same Day Dental Crowns
The biggest benefit of choosing a same day dental crown is the immediate change in your smile. You don’t have to wait to cover up a cracked or discolored tooth with this method. It also reduces the chances of issues with sensitivity. When you’ve had the tooth shaped for the crown but it’s still uncovered, it’s not uncommon for the tooth to react to hot and cold with pain. Covering it immediately with the crown protects it and reduces sensitivity. Same day services work for both ceramic and zirconia crown materials, offering you plenty of durability without the wait. This procedure also generally requires less removal of the natural tooth structure before the crown is added. If you have healthy enough teeth that just need some cosmetic adjustments, you may prefer how much of the underlying tooth material is preserved with this technique.
Consider same day crowns for a fast upgrade to your smile here at Liberty Family Dentist. We’re always ready to help with treatments like crowns. Protect your smile with the help of a friendly and supportive dentistry team.