Susan Weinberg, DMD

The best way to whiten a crown is to replace the crown with a crown made in a lighter shade.  This is why it can be helpful to ask yourself if you like the color of your teeth before getting a crown done.  If you'd like to have whiter teeth, it's usually better to whiten them and then get any restorative work done.  Then when you go to shade match for your crown, for example, it will be more accurately matched to the lighter color of your whitened teeth.  

Teeth whiteners only work on natural tooth structure, so the shade of crowns and filling material will not change.  Your teeth will whiten, but the rest will not.  It is important to consider this before proceeding with the whitening process.  If you already have fillings on your front teeth, it's possible to redo the fillings with a lighter shade of filling material, and you could also redo a crown in a lighter shade if that's what you needed to do to have lighter teeth match the work you have done.  

A crown procedure in our office entails two appointments.  The first is an hour long, during which we will remove decay, build the foundation filling, shape the tooth for the crown, and depending on your comfort, either take an impression or scan your teeth to send information to our professional dental lab.  You will leave our office with a temporary crown, and the lab then takes about two weeks to design your crown.  We opt to use an outside lab for creating the final crown as opposed to making it in the office, because they have the top-of-the-line team/equipment/materials to provide us with the best product.  Once the crown is done, you'll come back to see us for a quick 30-minute crown fitting where we'll cement it on for you.  Voila!

Go to your dentist and have them take an X-ray of the tooth that is bothering you.  The pain could be caused by a few things, but the X-ray is the first step to your answer.  It's possible that the tooth has a crack, or that there is a small nerve that didn't get found during your root canal.  The crown also might not be fitting correctly, or it could be a little too high, which can be solved by a simple bite adjustment.  

It's possible that the crown may be just a bit too high and that you'll need a slight adjustment to the crown to make the bite more comfortable for you.  Sensitivity after a crown procedure is relatively normal, however, and the area surrounding the tooth can feel bruised, so to speak, so it can sometimes take a week or two to calm down and feel better.  If the tooth is waking you up at night and is extremely hot/cold sensitive with lingering, sharp pain, it's possible you could end up needing a root canal.