The Key Reasons Why I Suggest You Avoid Dental Caps
Does it surprise you to hear a holistic dentist with more than 25 years experience tell you to avoid dental crowns and caps? After all, caps and dentists go together like salt and pepper. Dental crowns are put on a pedestal as being the most permanent of all dental restorations. So why am I telling you to never let a dentist cap your tooth?
For those who have crowned teeth, this sequence of events may sound familiar:
*Your tooth has a cavity
* Your tooth doctor repairs the hole with a filling … amalgam or composite
* Down the road the restoration fails or maybe the tooth breaks
* A crown (ceramic, gold or ceramic fused to metal) will finally be installed
* Many times the capping procedure is traumatic enough to cause the tooth nerve to expire
* Dead nerves cause pain an need to be treated by means of a root canal procedure or an extraction
The tooth nerve often dies as a consequence of the traumatic and aggressive crown procedure. To crown a tooth, the dentist must grind away all of the enamel and a significant amount of the dentin that makes up the inner tooth core. Studies have shown that as many as 15% of crowned teeth will experience complications serious enough to kill the tooth nerve. If you’re lucky enough to dodge the root canal / extraction bullet, you may think you’ve won the battle.
Although crowns are often called “permanent”, they won’t last for ever. In fact, the average life expectancy of a cap is actually about 10 years. Just about all insurance plans will pay to replace a new crown when it fails after only five years. Most dental clients don’t understand how the cap can decay … how can an object made of ceramic or metal develop a cavity? Nobody wants to invest another considerable chunk of cash to re-fix a tooth they assumed had been fixed in a permanent way.
When trying to explain why your tooth must be worked on again, your dentist may assert things such as: “nothing lasts forever” or “the oral cavity is a very hostile environment”. He / She may even pass the blame over to you by hinting that lousy oral cleanliness along with bacterial plaque along the gum-line caused the crown the fail. The only problem with this explanation is that assuming bad oral cleanliness were to blame, all of your teeth would be damaged by decay … not only this single capped tooth.
If you are a thinking person, the warning flags should be soaring about now … this story does not entirely seem sensible. The key reason crowns fail after some time is because of a critical engineering mistake. Caps are made of materials that happen to be quite rigid … porcelain, gold or porcelain fused to gold. Surprisingly, your teeth are actually very flexible. There’ re intended to bend at the gum line under biting forces.
So each time you chew, the ensuing tug-of-war generates tension and strain at the gum-line, causing the seal between the tooth and cap to weaken. In the absence of a proper seal, harmful bacteria can get in between the tooth and crown–causing decay. The dentist will likely refer to this as a leaking crown. You call it a total bummer!
There’s a small division of dental art known as biomimetic dentistry that recognizes and tackles the issue of crown leakage. To start with, biomimetic practitioners rarely if ever install crowns on teeth. Second of all, these dentists never place unbending, inflexible materials at the gum-line when rebuilding your teeth. By simply restoring your teeth with techniques that mimic nature, leaking crowns and “surprise root canal treatments” are generally prevented.
Biomimetic dental techniques are excellent alternatives to crowns, simulate the un-restored tooth under function, deliver long-lasting dental treatments and also significantly reduce the need for root canal treatment.
Curt Eastin DDS, ND is a holistic dentist and a naturopathic physician. He earned his doctorates at the University of Washington School of Dentistry and the National College of Naturopathic Medicine. His dental website is a rich resource for holistic dentistry.