If you have ever had any serious dental work done, then you probably know what a dental crown looks like. These caps cover your tooth after extensive damage from decay or fracture and drilling have made a normal filling impossible, presenting you with the look of a normal tooth. Old technology meant that the dental crowns had to be made of metal with an acrylic or porcelain overlay that covered it. Because of the metal under the caps, the face of the dental crowns had to be opaque rather than the normal looking translucency of a tooth. These crowns tend to look good when they are first installed, but because of the fact that they are not translucent, the look can deteriorate over time. We have all seen ?bad? dental crowns.



A dental crown that is cemented in your youth may not stain or color the way that a normal tooth does, which makes the opaque surface much more apparent next to the rest of your teeth. They can also begin to show metal at the gum line, which looks like a dark line and makes it obvious that your tooth is not normal. Any dentist, particularly a cosmetic dentist, could look at your smile and point out the dental crowns. Even worse can be metal crowns, which are obvious even when you are just talking, and which can be replaced with much more attractive porcelain dental crowns.

If you have visible dental crowns with a metal base that look less than perfect in your own mouth, then your alternative may be a new technology that allows a cosmetic dentist to bond all porcelain or all acrylic dental crowns in place of the old crowns. These new crowns, which can be bonded by a cosmetic dentist for you, can be made translucent like the rest of your teeth in order to have the best appearance and the most realistic look possible. It is almost impossible to tell the crowns from the real teeth.

While these dental crowns are somewhat more delicate because they are created entirely from porcelain, they are also more beautiful, and this is important to many people. If you are looking for a dentist to help you deal with the exposed metal crown in your mouth, then consider looking for a cosmetic dentist. This person will have the most experience working with the materials, and will be best qualified to match the crown to your existing teeth to give you a perfect smile, no metal included.

Dr. Thomas Hedge, a cosmetic dentist in Cincinnati, Ohio, suggests that you search the web for a qualified cosmetic dentist. Most cosmetic dentistry web sites have collections of before and after images of cases the doctor has performed. His ?secret? to giving his patients beautiful natural all porcelain crowns is the use of digital photography. He photographs all aspects of the tooth with a special dental camera that gives proper lighting in the mouth. With today's technology, there is no reason a crown should be imperceptible from a natural tooth.