3 Prosthodontic Treatments for a Misshapen Tooth

Prosthodontics offer ways for a dentist to reshape a damaged tooth to put your best smile forward. If you have a misshapen tooth due to a growth abnormality, decay, or trauma, there are a few different treatment options that can fix your specific problem.

What are the best prosthodontics treatments for a misshapen tooth? Here are some options to discuss with your cosmetic-, family-, or general-dentistry specialist.

Resin Dental Bond

Dentists can apply a dental bond straight over the front of the misshapen tooth in one office visit. The molding resin can be sculpted to the desired shape and size to hide the natural tooth. Your dentist will then finish by hardening the resin in place with a special light.

The dentist won't need to shave down the tooth for bonding, as is required for veneers and crowns, and this can prove an important distinction if your misshapen tooth is already undersized. An exception might occur if your tooth is broken with sharp edges. The dentist will want to shave those edges down before placing the dental bond.

Porcelain Veneer

A porcelain veneer is adhered to the front of the misshapen tooth similarly to as with a resin bond. But a veneer is crafted in a lab based on a mold of your tooth and is then adhered to the tooth with a bonding cement. The natural tooth gets shaved down a bit to help facilitate the bonding between the tooth, cement, and veneer.

The veneer will take more office visits than a bond due to the need for creating molds and then affixing the veneer once the piece is crafted. Veneers also aren't reversible (and resin bonds are), due to the cement used and the shaving down of the tooth involved with veneers.

Porcelain or Hybrid Dental Crown

Dental crowns differ from bonds and veneers in that the crown covers the entire misshapen tooth rather than just the front. Crowns offer the look of an entirely new tooth while maintaining the interior structures of the natural tooth and offering those structures an added line of protection.

Porcelain dental crowns look the most natural, but the all-porcelain prosthodontics aren't always the best choice for a tooth that takes on a lot of the chewing work. Hybrid crowns featuring a metal base and a porcelain upper offer great strength without compromising on cosmetic appearances.

The dental crown will require shaving down the natural tooth to allow for the bonding of the cement and to make room for the bulk of the crown. But the shaving won't matter as much here, since the crown will cover the natural tooth anyway.

Contact a dentist such as Tore D Steinberg DDS PC for more information.