The Crown Affair

As a young child, living the the greater Toronto Area, I decided to go sledding on the snowbanks by my tiny suburban driveway before school one morning. The snowbank was steep and I smashed my face into the driveway. I cracked my brand new front tooth diagonally, starting a drama that has recently had another chapter.

But this new chapter gave me a glimpse at some amazing technology. Over 10 years ago I had the tooth crowned (without root canal).

On Friday afternoon, I bit into an ice cream sandwich and found my crown in my mouth. I looked like a hillbilly. It was awful. I’m currently looking for employment and I couldn’t exactly go to an interview with a single front tooth. If you want a picture of the hilarity I placed a picture on flickr here.

I called my dentist’s office (The same place that told me not to worry about it when I still had dental insurance) to find that their office isn’t open on Fridays.

So I went next door to the Amoskeag Urgent Dental Clinic. I was amazed by some of the technology now available to make crowns.

Last time I had a crown made, I went into the dentist’s office and he took tooth impressions, shaved down my tooth stump, tooth a tooth stump impression and made a temporary. When the Crown came back from the lab we took off the temporary crown to find that my crown didn’t fit correctly. A new temporary had to be created while we waited for the lab to create a crown that didn’t look ridiculous.

The process was much more streamlined in Dr. Adam Salem’s office. My crown was created in office while I waited. And understood my nerdy nature enough that he asked the technician to explain to me how they were making my new tooth.

Step 1: Yep, tooth impressions. They took a tooth impression of the broken crown stuck back together. Then Dr. Salem removed the rest of the original crown and we took a tooth impression of the tooth stub.

Step 2: The tooth impressions are scanned into a CAD software and the technician smooths out the scan and fixes places that would interfere.

It’s amazing how much a computer software can make a difference.

Step 3: The crown design is sent to a rapid machining machine that is small enough to be on the dentist’s benchtop. A small block of the desired tooth color is placed in the machine and the computer program does the rest.

The tooth took about 25 minutes to fabricate. I guess it’s longer than usual, but it gave me a chance to talk to Dr. Salem in french.

Step 4: Prepared tooth is fit tested.

Step 5: The crown is additionally coloured with paints and glazed. Glaze is then cured in this little machine.

Step 6: The Crown is installed.

Except I didn’t make it to step 6. Dr. Salem was not satisfied with the tooth colour, and it was late on a Friday afternoon. He wanted to make a new tooth with a different base colour. He glued the crown down with temporary glue and sent me on my way. I wasn’t supposed to return until Wednesday or so.

But my luck with that tooth has never been great.

I found myself back at Dr. Salem’s on Saturday morning. The temporary glue was a little too temporary and the crown came out overnight. He gave me a temporary crown and sent my fabricated crown out to a lab for professional painting.

Overall, it sucks to have to deal with dental work when we don’t have the money to waste, but it was very interesting to this little engineering nerd to see some of the new dental capabilities thanks to new technologies.

I would also recommend the Amoskeag Urgent Care Dental clinic if you ever find yourself in a bind. Everyone was super friendly. I really liked Dr. Salem and his technicians.  His receptionist is exceptional, I really felt like she understood my problem.

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