So, you’ve got your ceramic dental crown? If that same crown(s) now gives you more confidence to smile your way through life, showing off your pearly whites to as many people as you can, that’s fantastic.
However, keeping things this way takes work. You can’t simply get crowns, leave them be, and expect to have no issues. Ceramic dental crowns need the same love and care your natural teeth do. So if you want long-lasting, healthy crowned teeth, here are a few simple steps to follow and keep your teeth happy and healthy.
5 Ways To Care For Your New Ceramic Crown
Crowns should be a long term solution to restore decayed or damaged teeth. So here are the top ways for taking care of your ceramic dental crown.
Brush & Floss To Keep Teeth Healthy
Above all else, you need to brush and floss to keep your natural teeth and your crowns healthy. Although your crowns are artificial, the root lying beneath is natural, so brushing and flossing regularly helps prevent food and plaque from building up at the edges of the crown, which could eventually lead to tooth decay. Although crowns are designed not to discolour, keeping your natural teeth clean will help to keep them matching your natural teeth’ colour as long as possible.
Avoid Hard Foods
Avoid very hard foods or use your new crown for opening things like stuck zippers or wrappers if you want long-lasting ceramic crowns. Foods hard to chew can damage your crown by causing chipping or breaking of the porcelain of the crown, much like what could happen to your natural tooth.
Dental crowns can last a long time, between 10 and 20 years, so they can be a great long term treatment option. Chipping is a common reason for the failure of a crown so avoiding foods or activities that could increase fracture risk will minimize this complication risk. Essentially, any hard foods that could chip your teeth, avoid as much as you can.
Kick Your Bad Habits
Kicking your bad habits can help prevent damage to your crown that could easily be avoided. For example, avoid:
- Chewing pens/pencils
- Biting your nails
- Chewing on hard lollies or ice blocks
- Clenching your teeth
All of these factors can cause crowns to chip. Although these points may seem trivial, you certainly need to take them seriously if you want to minimise chipping risk and give your crowns the best chance to last as long as possible.
Use A Nightguard/Dental Night Splint
Do you clench or grind your teeth when you’re stressed? Clenching and grinding can be very detrimental to your teeth and crowns and, according to Better Health, it can cause:
- Cracked teeth
- Worn-down teeth
- Pain in the teeth and jaw
- Sore jaw muscles
- Broken teeth (and crowns)
Whatsmore is that all of this can happen during the night when you’re not even aware of it. So wearing a nightguard/splint can be a fantastic way to protect teeth and crowns from unnecessary damage caused by grinding and clenching.
Your dentist will make you a custom-fitted nightguard to treat grinding and protect the teeth. If you’d like some advice or would like to get a nightguard fitted, please call us to book an appointment.
See A Dentist Regularly
Regular visits mean your dentist can check on your crowns to look for any damage to the crown and if they need replacing. They can also check and clean the tooth at the crown margin, looking for signs of decay or wear allowing for restoration of the tooth while the problem is small if diagnosed early.
Look After Your Crowns
You now know 5 ways to keep your ceramic dental crowns healthy and keep providing you with a smile you love to share.
To summarize, here are the main points again:
- Brush and floss to keep teeth healthy
- Avoid hard foods
- Kick your bad habits
- Use a nightguard
- See a dentist regularly
If you need any help getting dental crowns or looking after your existing ones, contact us at Beaches Dental Mona Vale today or book an appointment online. We look forward to helping you and your teeth.