Hello I’m Dr. Peter Balogh. Today, I’m going to talk to you what to do if you’ve lost a crown. A lot of people have crowns on your teeth. These are put in place typically with some cement onto the teeth.
Here’s an example of a crown and more or less, it looks like a thimble that fits over top of the tooth like so.
What Happens When Your Crown Cement Wears Off
Usually there’s some cement or something that holds it in place and seals a tooth. Unfortunately the best of cements tend to wash out after many years, sometimes 10, 15, 20+ years. The worst thing is when it’s coming off and you need to have this tooth put back in right away and you can’t get in to see your dentist.
Is Your Crown Hollow?
First thing to do is just to check to see if the crown looks hollow. If it does, it should look like a thimble that goes over top your finger much like this. You probably can’t see it on the screen here but it’s hollow and it would fit over top of the tooth much like a thimble fits over top of your finger.
Clean Out Your Crown
Make sure it’s clean. Clean it out, rinse it, and you can dry the tooth as well with maybe a tissue or towel.
Pick up some denture adhesive. Doesn’t really matter what brand you pick up. Any denture adhesive will do. Generally, the paste or the cream type will be the best thing.
- Put a couple dabs on the inside of the crown.
- With your tooth dry, put it in place and then gently press down and gently bite down on it. That will hold it in place for a while.
It’ll hold it in place a day or so or the better part of a day at least until you get through a difficult situation.
Make Sure You See Your Dentist!
Don’t leave it like that for long term because eventually saliva will get underneath it. Bacteria will get underneath it and that will decay so it’s not a good thing for the long-term but it gets you out of a tight spot until you can come in to get to see your dentist.
Unfortunately, sometimes the truth comes off because it’s broken and you’ll see that the inside of the tooth is not hollow. You’ll see stars of tooth filling material in there. In those cases, you can certainly try the same thing but there probably won’t be enough tooth to hold on to the crown in which case it may not hold very well so not a lot of suggestions for that.
But hopefully that tip will make a little bit easier for you any other questions. You can always contact us at our website at www.vccid.com. Send us a question and do my best to answer.
Thank you.
