Dental Crowns – Allen, TX
Repair, Restore, and Protect Your Beautiful Smile
While your enamel is the hardest material in your body, it’s by no means indestructible. From injuries, to bad chewing habits, to an overly acidic diet, there are plenty of ways to damage or weaken your teeth. Thankfully, at Allen Smile Design, we can repair, restore, and protect your beautiful smile with a custom-made dental crown! If you’re ready to regain the function and appearance of your pearly whites, give us a call today!
Why Choose Allen Smile Design For Dental Crowns?
- High Quality Materials for Beautiful and Lasting Results
- Experienced, Talented, and Compassionate Dentist
- Advanced Technology for Easy, Putty-Free Digital Impressions
What Is a Dental Crown?
Essentially, a dental crown is a tooth-shaped cap. It’s designed to fit snugly over the top of a tooth and encapsulate its entire visible surface. This allows it to do three very important things. For one, it restores the tooth’s strength and functionality. Secondly, fortifying a tooth with a dental crown will protect it from further damage or decay. On top of it all, it also allows your Allen dentist to completely redesign the appearance of the tooth to your liking.
What Issues Can a Dental Crown Fix?
Dental crowns in Allen are easily one of the most popular restorations available, and it’s easy to see why. This versatile solution can correct a variety of issues, including:
- Teeth that have been weakened by extensive decay or large fillings.
- Cracked, broken, or fractured teeth.
- Misshapen, stained, or otherwise cosmetically flawed teeth.
- Teeth that have just been repaired with a root canal.
- Replacing a missing tooth altogether when paired with a dental implant.
What’s the Process for Getting a Dental Crown?
In nearly every case, it only takes two simple appointments to design, create, and place a dental crown. First, your tooth will need to be prepared to ensure there’s enough space for your new crown. To accomplish this, we’ll numb the area and carefully remove a small amount of enamel. Next, we’ll use our iTero Digital Scanner to take high-resolution impressions of the area without the need for sticky, uncomfortable dental putty.
As the dental lab creates your custom restoration with these impressions, we’ll fit you with a temporary dental crown to keep your teeth safe and comfortable in the meantime. Before you know it, you’ll be coming back to our office to have it replaced with your beautiful permanent crown. After we’ve cemented it into place and checked that your bite feels comfortable, you’ll be ready to enjoy your newly restored smile!
What Are the Benefits of Dental Crowns?
While there are plenty of restorative treatments out there that can repair your pearly whites, dental crowns offer a variety of benefits, including:
- Lifelike appearance: Once your dental crown is in place, it will be virtually indistinguishable from the rest of your teeth.
- Long-lasting results: With the proper care, you can easily expect your dental crown to last for a decade or more!
- Preserves natural tooth structure: Dental crowns aim to preserve as much of the natural tooth as possible and prevent the need for an extraction later on.
Understanding the Cost of Dental Crowns
Your dental crowns are going to be different than anyone else’s—their design will be particularly tuned to you in order to suit your particular needs. While this has a lot to do with their success, but also means that it’s a little bit difficult to tell you what your dental crowns will cost before we meet you.
That said, there’s some information that you can use to budget for your dental crown beforehand—here’s what you should know.
Factors that Affect the Cost of Dental Crowns
First of all, it’s usually a good idea to consider some of the factors that can contribute to the cost of your dental crowns. As you can imagine, the material that your crown is made of plays a large role here. There are, however, several other variables to consider, like the severity of the damage that you’re attempting to repair. This impacts whether you’re going to need any preliminary procedures, like root canals, before you receive your dental crown.
It's important to remember that you shouldn’t just default to the least expensive option—which variables you select for your dental crown should come from balancing your needs with your budget.
Does Dental Insurance Cover Dental Crowns?
Dental crowns are one of the most common restorative procedures, which means that dental insurance companies are usually willing to pay for at least a portion of the treatment. While every plan is different, many will pay for around 50% of the cost of your dental crown. Of course, it’s still best to consult with your insurance company to ensure that you’re getting the care that you need.
Other Options for Making Dental Crowns Affordable
Even if you don’t have insurance, you should still be able to get a dental crown if you need one. We afford you a variety of options for making the care that you receive from us fit your budget, including financing services from both CareCredit and Lending Club that can help divide the cost of care across several months.
We also offer an in-house membership plan where, for a flat annual fee, you can receive a 15% discount on all the necessary care that you receive from us. This is in addition to a host of complimentary preventive services, which will help you keep the long-term costs of maintaining your dental crown low.
If you’re interested in learning more about how you can make your restoration fit your budget, give us a call and we’ll talk to you about your options.
Dental Crown FAQs
Dental crowns are one of the few styles of dental treatment that are used for both cosmetic and restorative purposes. Their versatility makes them remarkably useful, and if you’re wondering whether they could help you, you may have a lot of questions.
At Allen Smile Design we’re happy to clear up any misunderstandings you may have during a consultation. Until you can get to our office, however, here are some answers to common questions about these restorations.
What Are Dental Crowns Made Of?
A dental crown is just a restoration designed to cover your tooth. As a result, they can be made of just about any material that’s malleable enough to be sculpted. Dental crowns have been crafted from quite a few different things over the years, but there are some that have risen to the top.
Here at Allen Smile Design, we use two different kinds of materials for dental crowns: EMAX and zirconia. These are both sophisticated ceramics that share quite a few similarities. For one, they’re a pale translucent color that allows them to blend in with your natural teeth. They’re also lighter and thinner than other ceramics, but are strong enough that they can withstand day-to-day stress.
How Do You Know When a Dental Crown Needs to Be Replaced?
If you’re worried that your dental crown is a little old and needs to be replaced, the best thing to do is to call us for an exam. We’ll be able to perform X-rays that can determine the integrity of your dental crown.
However, it’s good to be vigilant for signs of impending failure. Here are the top symptoms of a dental crown that needs to be replaced:
- Sensitivity or discomfort around or under your dental crown.
- Your dental crown is wiggling or loosening.
- Your dental crown has Chips, cracks, discoloration, or other visible damage.
- Your porcelain-fused-to-metal crown has a black ring around it.
Do Dental Crowns Feel Natural?
We take incredible pride in the quality of our restorations. That means using the highest quality materials, but it also entails making use of sophisticated imaging and modeling technology to ensure that your restoration feels right at home in your mouth.
While it’s common for dental crowns to feel a little bit awkward at first, they should start to seem natural fairly quickly. They’re strong enough to be able to bite and chew easily, so eating shouldn’t feel even remotely strange once you’re a little bit used to it.
What Can I Eat with a Temporary Crown?
You’re likely to have to wear a temporary crown until your permanent one is finished, which will be adhered with a much weaker adhesive than your permanent restoration will be. While you should still be able to chew comfortably while wearing the temporary crown, it’s still a good idea to avoid certain foods.
It’s possible that your temporary crown may not form a perfect seal around your tooth, allowing sticky sugars to get under it and cause cavities. For that reason, you may want to steer clear of sweets for the time being. You should also avoid anything gummy, chewy, or that could otherwise test the integrity of the temporary cement.
In a few weeks your permanent crown will come in, and you’ll be ready to enjoy everything that your brand-new tooth has to offer!