Crowns (or “caps”)

A crown (like the one pictured above), also known as a “cap”, is a dental restoration which completely encircles or caps a tooth or even a dental implant.

Its main purpose is to protect your tooth against your biting forces, prevent further damage, especially cracking and grinding!

To protect your tooth, especially if the cavity is very large and more so after root canal treatment. Because the crown encircles your whole tooth with a continuous material it can withstand better biting forces and prevents your tooth from cracking!

Here’s a summary flow chart of generally how a crown is made:

For those who prefer reading:

• We check and look at your teeth to make sure that they are suitable to make a crown (similar to knowing that the foundation of your house is stable to rebuild/renovate)

• First appointment

  • We numb your tooth up with local anesthetics.

  • Tooth will be reshaped to allow the future crown to sit properly (can take between 1-3 hours).

  • A scan (or impression) will be taken so that we can send it to a dental lab to manufacture your crown.

  • A temporary crown is placed to protect the teeth while custom prosthesis is being made in an Australian based dental laboratory.

• Typical turnaround time is around 2-3 weeks

• Next appointment:

  • We numb your tooth up again with local anesthetics.

  • We check that your prosthesis is made up to standard.

  • If it is, installation will be done on the same appointment.

  • If not, we will redo the prosthesis.

• For the crowns which caps your tooth: at least two appointments.

• For implant crowns: at least two appointments - this is for implant stage 2 treatment. Stage 1 implant treatment is a separate treatment placing an implant in the bone. For more information click here to read about dental implants.

We outsource our crowns to local Australian labs and work closely with them. I usually pick labs which are located in either locally in Sydney or all the way to Melbourne depending on the type of job required. We try to support our local technicians.

Awkward Yeti's lighthearted take:

Something for you think about if you recently had root canal treatment: