Crown replacement

[Aries92]

Hi there. I am writing to hopefully get some courage and ease my fears, I have an appointment this Wednesday to have a crown on tooth #13 replaced, it is root canal treated tooth. I have had the crown for over 10 years and never any issues with it, however a bit of him recession and it shows a black line and I’m very self conscious of it. I had an implant placed on tooth 14 a couple years ago and prior to that my dentist placed a small filling on the backside of 13 as there was a small area where she wanted to prevent food trapping. Well the filling came out in December and she recommended to just replace the crown now at this point since I hate the look of it anyway. I am mostly nervous because sometimes when I floss or suck air around the area of this tooth I can smell a slight smell…and she said it is likely due to bacteria or food particles, that she doesn’t believe based on what she can see that the tooth is compromised underneath, she said she is “85% sure that everything will be fine” but I am sick over the possibility that a. The tooth underneath is decayed and taking this crown off will disrupt everything and I’ll need to have it pulled. B. There will be a smell when the crown is removed and it won’t go away when the new crown is put on. My head is swirling and I start x ray school in a few weeks and I cannot have a huge situation where I am dealing with this tooth needing to come out etc, I don’t want to be missing a tooth when I am doing clinical rotations etc…I am so nervous. Can someone please tell me how these things usually go? Are they successful for the most part? Am I over reacting? I have major trauma from dental things in the past so things like this aren’t simple for me. As far as any smells, how does the dentist make sure that the patient will leave without a smell and how do they clean the area, etc to make sure I of that? I have to imagine many patients deal with this because over time crowns can develop a smell so how is this dealt with? Any insight and courage on this process helps..thank you

 

[Gordon]

The tooth underneath is likely to be fine, but if the old crown is leaking then it needs to be replaced as soon as possible to prevent the underlying tooth from decaying.

The smell is from bacteria which are happily living in the gap between tooth and old crown. They will be dealt with when the crown is removed and the area will be disinfected before the impressions. There won't be any smell when you leave the surgery.

 

[Aries92]

@Gordon thank you for your response, so these procedures are pretty standard and usually go fine without issues?

 

[Gordon]

Yes, we do crown replacements regularly. You can anticipate an average life of a crown to be about 10 years, so replacing them 2-3 times is not unusual.