Don’t Create a Sticky Situation!
Today’s American lifestyles and diet choices are often dangerous for your teeth. Perhaps you have already experienced a compromised tooth from diet, sports, work, or a neglected routine in oral hygiene. A common way to restore a severely damaged tooth to working order is applying a dental crown.
A dental crown is a tooth-shaped “cap” placed over a tooth to restore its appropriate shape and size. Through accidents, heavy use, or some other factor, a dental crown might come loose from the tooth serving as its anchor. But hey, you’re a do-it-yourself kind of person — you could just squeeze on some super glue and put it back in place, right?
Wrong — don’t do it! Although you might be able to use strong glues as temporary sutures for other wounds, your mouth is a different landscape. Using any type of household glue in your mouth, no matter its strength or reputation, is not a good idea. Let’s discuss why.
Health, Safety and Glue
Many household glues contain ingredients that are at least mildly toxic and that weaken when introduced to water. Even water-resistant adhesives lose their bonding ability when exposed to vinegar or other common dietary acids. Also, one of the main functions of saliva is to help with digestion, breaking down foods. Saliva breaks down or at least softens most bonding agents over a couple of days, rendering any “personal” dental work useless.
The best reason to leave the matter of a loose crown or dental appliance to experienced professionals is because we have the proper equipment and materials for the job that are not found in drugstores or pharmacies. Your dentist puts dental crowns back in place with tried and true adhesives specifically designed for dental applications. However, if you’d still like some piece of mind by having something on hand, we can help you put together a dental emergency kit – available just in case we aren’t. There are dental adhesives or tooth cements available at most local pharmacies, but they are designed to be temporary, to work long enough to get you back to civilization. Making an appointment with the Yuba City Dentistry Group to examine the issue is still the best action you can take.
Delicate Precision Needed
When dealing with dental crowns, you’re working with precisely measured dental prosthetics contoured to a specifically prepared tooth. When the crown came loose, what if something happened to your tooth that makes the crown fit differently? Also, you’re working with tiny objects in a restricted space at difficult angles. If you put it on the wrong way by so much as half a millimeter, you might cause damage to the opposing tooth or the crown itself. At that point, a replacement is your only option, and hopefully not of the other tooth! So, why not wait and let us put the crown back where it’s supposed to go?
If you’d like more information about dental crowns, dental emergency kits, or what kinds of adhesives our staff uses, please give us a call or schedule an appointment online. Let’s make sure your dental crown keeps doing its job in the best way possible!
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