I was told getting a CEREC crown would be a snap and fit better than other crowns. Not only was I in the chair for over three hours, but the crown didn’t fit properly. She said it was because my tooth was in really bad shape so she had to take a general model from the database. It doesn’t fit at all like my normal teeth or even my other crowns. In fact, she had to grind it down because it didn’t fit in properly. Now it hurts. What do I do?

Carol

Dear Carol,

Something is wrong here. Let’s start with your dentist’s statement that she had to use a general model from the database. Her reasoning that the tooth was in too bad of shape doesn’t make much sense to me. Of course the tooth was in bad shape. That is the whole point of needing a dental crown! Why would you put a crown on a healthy intact tooth?

CEREC crowns should fit better than other crowns because they are designed and milled using precision software. However, computer software is only as good as the person programming it. Though, this software is pretty user friendly. For instance, let’s say you were missing your lower left molar. Your dentist would program that in and the software would give her a basic shape to use for that type of tooth to start the design. From there, images of your surrounding and opposing teeth give her the remainder of the information she needs to input into the software. Then it designs the crown.

Your crown is uncomfortable and she had to do grinding on the tooth, so clearly this didn’t happen properly. There are so many things that can go wrong with a dental crown. Here are just three:

• Open margins. If the crown does not fit the tooth perfectly around the complete circumference of the tooth, then you will have a gap where bacteria can get in leading to decay under your crown.
• Bite Design. When a bite isn’t designed properly, it throws off occlusion and you will end up with painful TMJ Disorder issues.
• Poor Contouring. If the tooth is not contoured properly, you will have gum inflammation, which will lead to gum disease.

What this boils down to is you need to have this tooth looked at by another dentist. If they can tell you what is wrong with it, you can get either ask her to re-do the crown or ask for a refund and have it redone by another dentist.

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