Crowns-Know what your getting.

Hello again. Let’s talk about crowns today. A friend(WH) asked me a very good question today. His wife was going to have a tooth crowned and he wanted to know which was the best type. That was probably a mistake on his part because he was subjected to a long winded discourse by me. Many have said that I don’t know when to shut up and they are probably right!. My first thought was why his dentist had not explained it all, but I was happy to oblige a friend. So here we go. A gold crown is a fine way to restore a tooth, but is almost never used these days. Although a status symbol in some cultures, few people want the look of gold in their mouths in Enino or anyware else for that matter in  our self- conscious society. None of the Encino dentists do gold crowns any longer. Want to have some fun. Tell a cosmetic dentist you want a gold crown and watch his face turn blue from a lack of breathing.  Now, the next consideration is the all porcelain crown. Despite the howl that will go up when I say this, they frequently break and do not fit the tooth as well as the other options. They are very difficult to construct and very ,very few are acceptable to me. This includes the frequently touted “ one visit crown”. Beware. Many will argue and throw manufacturer’s “unbiased” testing out, but that is my opinion and I will stand by it. By far the most commonly done crown is the porcelain fused to metal (PFM) crown. Perfected over many years, there are multiple layers of porcelain hand applied and baked on to a metal framework. This is a tried and true method and my choice. Now it gets tricky. Hang in here. There are three classes of metal. The least expensive is a non-precious metal. This is ok but 5% of women are allergic to nickle in the metal and the final crown usually has a grey color. Semi-precious (noble)  is an option but does not eliminate all of the above problems. The gold standard is called high noble metal and must meet many specifications and standards. The more gold, the better the color, tissue acceptance and strength. My advice, based on many years of experience, is spend the money on a high noble PFM crown. Your worth it!.       AM      PS    Something  just occured to me. My friend knows he will get the truth and nothing but the truth with me and so will all my readers. That’s called credibility and this is where you find it.