I had a dental crown break after three years. I needed to replace it but have been quite busy lately. Because of that, I went to a different dentist who advertised same day crowns using a CEREC machine. However, the tooth with the CEREC crown is way too bulky. It’s uncomfortable, doesn’t line up with my other teeth, and I find myself biting my tongue unintentionally because the crown is “in the way”. The dentist has tried filing it a couple of times, but it hasn’t really improved much. Where do I go from here?
Madeline
Dear Madeline,
This must be so frustrating for you. Here you were trying to save time and it has ended up even more of a hassle. I have two concerns here, beginning with your original crown. It should not have broken after a few years. These are designed to protect the tooth underneath and keep them from breaking. As a result, they should last you many years. Your dentist should have recognized that and offered to replace it. Hopefully, it was a matter of flawed material, which can happen to the best of dentists, and not that he was incompetent in how he placed it.
As for the CEREC crown, it sounds to me like your dentist is new with this software. Usually, the dentist would take images of your tooth that needs to be crowned and the CEREC software would build-up an excellently fitted tooth from there. However, you didn’t have the original tooth because your need was to replace a damaged crown.
There are ways to build up a tooth from scratch that will fit perfectly using the software, but it seems to have been beyond the scope of your dentist’s knowledge.
This crown does need to be replaced. The issues you listed can lead to serous problems, including tumors on your gum where you keep biting it, gum disease from a crown iritating the area, and even TMJ Disorder from your bit getting thrown off.
Have your dentist replace this crown at his or her expense. However, I don’t think they are going to be able to get the results you want with her understanding of the software. I think you are going to have to go the “traditional” route and have this porcelain crown made in a dental laboratory.
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