Dental crowns are like a cap that covers the tooth for protection. Dental crowns give your tooth another chance after its structure was compromised by decay, trauma incident or severely worn down with time. While dental crowns can be the best option for broken teeth, they are more expensive than fillings, because of the materials and labour involved in creating them.

There are hints to protect your teeth from needing a crown in some circumstances:

1. Don’t ignore painful teeth

Sensitive or aching teeth can sometimes come from a cavity developed between teeth or hard to brush areas. It is best to have this fixed early. When sensitive teeth are ignored for long enough, cavities can grow bigger, and it becomes difficult for dentists to repair cavities with simple fillings. It can leave your dentist with little choices, and where crowns may be recommended to save the tooth.

2. Wear a custom-made professional mouthguard for contact sports

This can protect your teeth from accidents and breakages. While our teeth are tough, protective mouthguards can reduce impact forces.

3. Visit your dentist regularly and learn how to properly remove food debris after meals

– The visit intervals depend on your current dental state and treatment plan discussion with your dentist. Normally it would be around six month interval but it could be 3, 6, 9 or 12 month intervals.

– Brush gently, food is soft and thus you only need the soft bristle toothbrush. Heavy pressure brushing over time would cause tooth wear

– Floss daily: around half of teeth surfaces are in contact with each other, this is the difficult and impossible areas for your toothbrush to reach. Cairns Total Care Dental Boutique thinks flossing is more important than brushing (but of course, don’t forget to brush!) because most of the cavities that he need to fixing are coming from between teeth. Food traps between two teeth, and both teeth get damaged if flossing is not done regularly.

4. Talk to your dentist about teeth grinding

Gradual wear on tooth surfaces can cause long term damage. Your dentist will be able to see if you have signs of grinding.

An occlusal splint or bite guard can help to release the pressures and wear from continual grinding.

5. Use your teeth for the right job

Your teeth is designed for chewing food and beautiful smiles. They are strong enough to last you a lifetime. However there are times, you would be tempted to use them to hold a nail, an instrument or as a bottle opener. The chance of them breaking and result in needing a crown is very real and this would be a costly replacement of your tools for not using them for the right job.