general dentistry
Crowns: a cap that saves the tooth under it.
A crown is a cap that protects a damaged tooth — covering it completely so a cracked, heavily filled, or root-canaled tooth can chew like new instead of splitting like old. When more tooth is filling than tooth, a crown is what keeps it yours.
Records here are digital: the iTero Lumina scans the prepared tooth — no impression trays — and the crown comes back matched to shade and bite. You wear a temporary between visits.
When a crown is honest, and when it isn't
Honest: a crack that will spread, a filling replaced so many times the walls are thin, a tooth after root canal (back teeth especially — they get brittle), a broken corner too big for bonding. In each case the crown is structural, not cosmetic.
Not yet honest: a small cavity that composite can still handle. When a filling will genuinely do, that's what we'll recommend — the cheaper repair now is also the repair that preserves more of your tooth for later decades.
Living with a crown
A finished crown eats what you eat and brushes like a tooth, because functionally it is one — with one care note: floss it daily, since the margin where crown meets tooth is where decay would try again.
Expect ten to fifteen years, often more. Grinders shorten that; a night guard protects the investment, and if your wear patterns say you grind, you'll hear it before the crown is made, not after it cracks.
Living with the temporary
Between visits, a temporary crown protects the prepared tooth and holds its spacing — treat it kindly. Skip sticky foods like caramel and gum, chew on the other side where you can, and when you floss, slide the floss out sideways instead of pulling up through the contact.
If the temporary comes loose, call us right away and bring it with you — re-cementing takes minutes. Some temperature and pressure sensitivity after each appointment is normal and fades once the final crown is seated; call if it increases instead.
Questions we hear in the chair
- How many visits does a crown take?
- Typically two: preparation and scan at the first, cementing the final crown at the second, with a temporary between. You'll have the schedule and the cost in writing at visit one.
- Does getting a crown hurt?
- The tooth is numb for preparation, and most patients rank it with a long filling. Temporaries can be mildly sensitive; the final crown shouldn't be — if it is, the bite gets adjusted, quickly and free.
- Crown or filling — who decides?
- The tooth does, honestly assessed. Remaining healthy structure is the deciding factor, and you'll see the X-ray and hear the reasoning. When it's genuinely borderline, you get both options priced and the trade-offs plain.
- What about inlays and onlays?
- The middle ground — more than a filling, less than a full crown, for teeth that qualify. When your tooth is a candidate, it's presented as the conservative option it is.
Clinical content reviewed by Dr. Marissa DeAngelis, Senior Dentist.
Serving Crozet for 50+ years. At least two full-time doctors in the building, Monday through Friday.