A crown most of times do supply the finishing touches after a root canal. Dental crown does ensure sealing of the tooth and also strengthens it for the long term. Teeth that are reasonably strong, in particular minimally damaged front teeth, may not need dental crown for strengthening the tooth itself.
Painless Vs painful & Brittle
Our teeth has inherently the strongest substance in our body, but as and when a decay weakens the tooth it becomes more and more brittle as they get hollowed or weakened from inside. In addition to this, once we need do RCT we have to remove the central core of the tooth making them dry and hollowed than the natural tooth, making it susceptible to fracture which is less likely otherwise.
WHAT CHANGES POST RCT?
Root canals save teeth from decay and also from ultimate removal from jaw, but RCT in some cases can also weaken the tooth. When the pulp inside a tooth is infected or exposed or dead , dentists can save the tooth through a root canal by removing the pulp and applying special filling in the root canals. In routine root canal procedure dentists drill through the tooth and then remove infected pulp and decayed enamel, dentin and pulp. For this reason, after removal of the all infected areas from the tooth in most cases the teeth with large cavities become weak. Even filling the cavity doesn’t ensure the strength of the tooth in function and more likely to fracture over time, thus the post RCT deficit causes them to lose strength and become likely to fracture.
What if no crowns are done post RCT?
In the majority of patients we see at Apex Orthopaedic Center we have observed that, we do the teeth root canal treatments when the tooth is badly broken down or grossly damaged, in very few cases we have a minimal tooth losss needing RCT. Mainly this happens because of patients delay to detect or report the damage of tooth in early stages or because of previous neglected dental care.
So considering above facts majority of root canal requiring teeth are already mechanically vulnerable to fracture, even though they are not paining to you. Avoiding crown in these teeth might lead to fracture in function without any pre-signs/symptoms. In the unfortunate events of fracture or crack in tooth, we would probably be loosing the tooth which we tried to save by RCT.
Types of cracked tooth
Depends the on the extent of fracture the fate of the tooth and long-term success rate of the tooth survival will depend. Might require slight repairs to complete removal of the tooth. Avoid taking such chances in tooth we tried to save by doing RCT and also by putting so much efforts and invest of time.
Please consider we cant make the things just like before by repairing them, after any repairs in teeth there is some bio-mechanical loss which is unavoidable but unfortunate. Hence it is always better to be cautious and do a crown in RCT tooth.
Also it has to known that not all RC Treated teeth require crowns as in the most of the times the front teeth and the teeth getting RCT for reasons other than the cavity and or fractures most of the times can be left without dental crown as per the dentists recommendations and the of use & function of the said tooth.
GET THE BEST SOLUTION FOR ALL THE DENTAL NEEDS
Get the best possible outcome from your tooth treatment you deserve by Dental crowns. Do get the crowns done as and when advised by dentist thus retaining the treated teeth for long term in the use. Avoid gambling with your oral health with neglecting attitude. As we have discussed in our blog on dental implants that costs you more than a simpler treatment and safe outcome, also unavoidable tooth pain and tooth removal despite of RCT. Thus post tooth removal a dental implants or bridge or more possible treatment can be easily avoided.
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