Crowns

Dental crowns are, in the most basic form, a helmet or protective restoration for your tooth. Teeth may need crowns for a variety of reasons and although they are sometimes perceived as a scary or painful procedure to patients, they are actually just the opposite, and if your tooth requires a crown it is an attempt to keep the tooth healthy and in your mouth for as long as possible.

Here are some of the most common reasons a tooth may need a crown:

Your tooth has had a root canal. All back teeth that require a root canal will also require a crown to prevent the tooth from fracturing. If a root canal procedure has been performed, your tooth’s internal structure has been weakened to the extent that it cannot survive without something to protect it.
Your tooth has had a previous metal or large composite filling that has caused stress fractures in your natural tooth structure. Your tooth is composed of a crystalline structure, similar to glass, and as such fractures or cracks will continue to propagate or get larger unless something is done to hold your tooth together.
Your tooth has lost a significant amount of tooth structure. This may have happened due to a very large cavity that requires removal of the decay to the extent that there isn’t enough tooth structure remaining to support a filling. Additionally, this may have happened previously and the large filling is starting to leak, fail, or a cavity is again forming around the filling, which will require complete removal of the filling and the tooth structure damaged by the cavity.
Another reason you may need a crown is the loss of a significant amount of tooth structure due to trauma, in which case a crown may be needed to restore the missing tooth structure.