Crowns are made of natural looking porcelain and are made to improve your overall smile or to blend in with your own teeth whilst strengthening the existing tooth structure.

Crowns are the restoration of choice when a filling or inlay/onlay will no longer suffice.

Crowns surround the tooth like a hat bracing it underneath, whereas a large filling will act as a wedge, weakening the tooth. Teeth with large fillings are prone to breaking or splitting.

Some of the indications for a crown to improve your dental health and overall smile include:

• A previously filled tooth where more filling exists than tooth. The existing tooth structure becomes weakened and can no longer support the filling
• Extensive damage by decay
• Discolouration’s of your teeth
• The aesthetic look of the existing tooth compromises your entire smile
• Fractures
• Root canal - After root canal, teeth tend to become brittle and are more apt to fracture. These teeth need to be protected by a crown
• Bridges - When missing teeth are replaced with a bridge, the adjacent teeth require crowns in order to support the replacement teeth

Crowns strengthen and protect the remaining tooth structure and can improve the appearance of your teeth. Crowns can be made from different materials which include:

• All Ceramic Crown (porcelain with no metal)
• Porcelain fused-to-metal crown (porcelain covering a metal substructure)
• Gold crown.

At Sunshine Coast Smile Centre, we often recommend porcelain crowns for our patients due to the durability and strength and their aesthetically pleasing appearance in the mouth. Gold crowns are sometimes used on back teeth for their added strength. It is common that the fitting of a crown is completed in two visits.

During your first visit, the tooth is prepared for the crown, an impression is made of the tooth, and a temporary crown is placed over the prepared tooth. At the next visit, the temporary crown is removed and the final crown is fitted, adjusted and finally cemented into place.

As with all areas of restorative dentistry preparation and insertion of an ideal crown requires meticulous attention to detail and years of experience. Both Dr’s Jon Kerr and Keith Doonan have extensive Post Graduate training and experience in the provision of crowns and related procedures.