Dr. Hall,
I had a crown on tooth 13 and a root canal on 12. Since the crown was put in, I’ve been having soreness around the gumline and discomfort with biting. Food also gets easily caught between 13 and 14. I feel the crown is in the wrong place. Can it be removed and replaced again? The dentist has tried to adjust the bite 5-6 times. Please help.
– Elsa in Virginia
Elsa,
This crown you have is a problem, but I doubt that it’s in the wrong place. It’s probably just shaped wrong.
I’m concerned as to why your dentist would adjust the bite five or six times. It’s not hard to tell if the bite is off and that should be able to be adjusted when it is put in, or certainly at the first return visit, max. Are you going in, telling him or her it hurts to bite on it, and so he or she is trying to fix that by adjusting the bite? I’m sure the bite must be right by now. I’ll bet it hurts when you bite because of the gum inflammation–that’s my guess.
Catching food between the crown and the tooth behind it, that’s a serious problem that shouldn’t be tolerated, and it may mean that the crown has to be re-done. When a crown is cemented, it can be very hard to get off, maybe even impossible, without destroying the crown. So it would need a new crown.
And the gums being sore–that’s not good. The crown is irritating the gums. That could be just because of the catching food, or it could also be that the crown doesn’t fit right at the margins or is too bulky at the margins. Do the gums hurt all the way around? or just between 13 & 14?
But re-doing the crown is going to be a big problem. If the crown didn’t fit right, the dentist shouldn’t have cemented it. If it catches food, there is probably a gap between the crown and the tooth behind it. But the dentist should have checked that when the crown was tried in and not cemented it. Now, with your gums inflamed, it’s going to be very difficult to re-do the crown because the dentist will need a new impression, and it is difficult to impossible to get a good impression in the presence of gum inflammation.
Here’s what I would do. Go back to the dentist and say:
1. That you need the crown fixed so that it doesn’t catch food.
2. You need the gums not to be sore.
3. You were told by me that this may require a new crown and that in order to get a good new impression, the gums need to be not inflamed, and the dentist needs to do whatever is necessary to get this to happen.
Good luck,
– Dr. Hall
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About David A. Hall
Dr. David A. Hall was one of the first 40 accredited cosmetic dentists in the world. He practiced cosmetic dentistry in Iowa, and in 1990 earned his accreditation with the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. He is now president of Infinity Dental Web, a company in Mesa, Arizona that does advanced internet marketing for dentists.
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