7 Tips to Help Your Dental Crowns Last Longer

7 Tips to Help Your Dental Crowns Last Longer

7 Tips to Help Your Dental Crowns Last Longer

1. Avoid sticky and hard foods

• Chewing on ice or hard candies can chip, crack, or break your crown, which means you’ll need to have it replaced earlier than you normally would. 

• Sticky or very chewy foods can also cause problems, either by weakening or loosening your crown or by causing sticky bits to get trapped between your crown and your gum.

2. Brush and floss to keep the tooth healthy

• Even though the crown extends over the entire tooth surface, you still need to brush the crown carefully to remove sticky plaque film and to keep the crown looking its best. 

• It's very important to floss since germs and food particles can still become trapped or caught between the crown and your gum or the neighbouring tooth.

3. Kick your bad habits

• Do you bite your nails? Chew on pencils, ice, or other hard objects? Grind your teeth when you’re stressed? Use your teeth for “tools” to open hard-to-budge bottle caps? Stop. 

• Not only can these habits break your crowns, but they can break or chip your natural teeth as well. 

• Hard objects can splinter and get lodged between your gums or even damage your gums.

4. Keep the crown from becoming stained

• It is really hard to remove stains from dental crowns.

• To maintain the crown’s white colour, be careful with substances that stain the teeth like coffee, black tea or wine.

• Smoking will also stain the teeth and any dental restorations a person may have, including crowns.

5. Use a night guard

• A Lot of people grind and clench their teeth while they’re sleeping, which means they’re probably not even aware of it. 

• Grinding and clenching might not seem like really serious problems, but over time, they can take a serious toll on your teeth. 

• Just regular biting exerts about 200 pounds of pressure per square inch; with grinding and clenching, that pressure can increase significantly, and that means your crown is at an increased risk of breaking. 

• Your Dentist can tell if you have a grinding habit just by looking at your teeth and gums. And if you do, he can create a custom night guard to cushion your teeth and protect your crown while you sleep

6. If the crown fits badly, have it adjusted

• If you notice that your newly fitted crown is longer or shorter than the adjacent teeth, you should go back to the dentist and have the crown refitted.

• Left in place, a badly placed crown will cause a bad bite that may lead to complications like jaw pain or injury to adjacent or opposite teeth.

• A person’s bite may also change over time, causing the dental crown to become uncomfortable. Patients having problems chewing or talking should have the dentist adjust the crown.

7. See the dentist regularly

• Having routine checkups and cleanings every six months is important for making sure the gums surrounding the crown stay healthy.

• It also allows your Dentist to check your crown to ensure it’s still “seated” and fitting properly so it continues to last for years.

• If for some other reason the crown comes loose, do not learn to live with it. The tooth will be exposed to infection and injury, so have the dentist refit the crown immediately if it comes loose.

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