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The average dental patient who sees a dentist on a regular basis has a mouthful of crowns. Those crowns were proposed and placed using (as I have told you before) pre 1992 rules for crown placement. Those rules said that when you have 1/2 of the natural tooth missing in the cheek to tongue dimension, the tooth was weak and needed a crown...And up until 1992 I followed those rules because they told me to in dental school and it made sense.
In 1992, bonding to the inside of the tooth (Bonding to enamel was 1956) was introduced and it was a game changer. When done right...and I know this because it is almost a quarter of a century..Bonding of teeth is exceptionally strong and called the need for crowns into question (except on back teeth with root canals.)
All dentists take an oath to do no harm and to save teeth.
Removing all the enamel (the outside of a tooth and the strongest material in the entire body) is doing harm to the tooth and is not saving the tooth...It is destroying the tooth, long term.
My long term patients have one or two crowns and many have NO CROWNS, that is EXCEPTIONAL dentistry because it saves teeth without destroying enamel.
And remember this: a well done resin bonded filling placed under a rubber dam in a back tooth has a life expectancy of 20+ years according to my personal experience. The life of the vast majority of crowns before they start to leak and cause the tooth underneath to rot away is also about 20 years.
My fillings cost about $350
My single unit crowns cost about $1600
Think about this: save your teeth for $350. What a bargain!
