I’m 69 years old. My teeth aren’t in great shape but not terrible either. No current pain. My dentist suggested possibly putting crowns on all my teeth. She said it would run into tens of thousands of dollars. Maybe 30k or more. It was just a suggestion. Has anyone had this done? Why would one do this?
Related question…she said it would also give me beautiful pearly whites…if one is just looking for cosmetically pretty teeth is there something in between $20 whitening strips and 30k to just get pretty teeth?
Crowns are not even permanent (or have they improved in the past 20 years?). If you were going to spend that much money, you could pull all your teeth and get implants, maybe even cheaper, depending on where you go to get them done. Those are effectively permanent.
There is also tooth-whitening that some dentists do, that is more effective than DIY and a hell of a lot cheaper than crowns.
If your dentist is a good dentist, in that she gives good care at reasonable cost and doesn’t cause unnecessary pain, I wouldn’t ditch her for this money grab. But if you say no thanks and she keeps bringing it up, I might think again.
Moderating
Since the OP is looking for personal experiences, let’s move this to IMHO (from FQ).
Any factual information is of course still welcome.
Paging @rsat3acr
The OP might consider dental tourism. It can be less expensive even including the flight and hotel stay.
According to Patients Beyond Borders, a company that researches medical procedures in other countries in order to inform medical tourists, the top 10 destinations for dental tourism among U.S. patients are Mexico, Thailand, Hungary, Spain, Poland, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Malaysia, Turkey and the Czech Republic. U.S. patients can expect to save 40%–65% in Mexico, 45%–65% in Costa Rica, and 50%–75% in Thailand.2 Average costs for several common procedures in each of the top 10 dental tourism destinations are illustrated below. - SOURCE
Numbers are from 2019 so are certainly different now but gives an idea:
My opinion? Don’t.
This is a classic upsell.
If you had horrible problems and had unlimited funds, go for it.
If you want hollywood teeth go to a cosmetic Dental practice.
Not that alot of dentists don’t do good work. But, why not?
Oh and crowns don’t always fit really well and cause pain. The pain of getting them put on.
And the time cost. You’ll be at the dentist every week for a long time.
Your dentist has their eye on a new boat, I’m thinking.
IANA dentist, but my dentist does a lot of cosmetic dentistry in addition to ordinary maintenance and repair type dentistry.
Crowning is sensible if the tooth enamel is chipping or almost worn off. That is to say, if you’ve got solid healthy tooth roots & tooth innards but the surface is worn out. Which is not uncommon once someone is into their middle 60s.
IME/IMO modern crowns are permanent life-of-the-patient installations. A lot less can go wrong crowning a healthy tooth than removing a healthy tooth and installing implants. Of course if one has unhealthy teeth down below the surface, then crowning an unhealthy tooth is likely wasted money. All too soon the rest of the tooth will fail and need to be removed / replaced / reworked, etc.
For cosmetic purposes, typically the front 8 or 10 teeth are done. Which leaves the back 2 or 3 not done.
An alternative for top, but not bottom teeth, is veneers. They are essentially a crown only on the front face of the tooth. Less invasive, equally life-of-patient, potentially cheaper.
I had my upper front 10 veneered about 5 years ago. Which also corrected some small degree of misalignment and all the edge unevenness. $1,500 per tooth, so $15K all in. The cosmetic difference was dramatic, and the functional improvement was real too. Despite not looking like fake Hollywood choppers. They look real, just a better version of real.
Just last week I signed up to crown the lower front 10. They’re chipping on their cutting surfaces but are otherwise solid. $2K each, so $20K total. I expect another great cosmetic outcome and some functional improvement.
With both of these moves, what I’m mostly doing is future-proofing my teeth so they won’t be falling apart when I’m 80 or 90 which is when repairs & healing would be far more challenging for both the doc and the patient.
If you’re somebody where $20K is an unimaginable amount of money, it doesn’t matter whether you need it, or your dentist is an opportunist. You’re not going to do that.
From where I sit, I got good value the first time round with the uppers and expect to get good value again with the lowers.
Full disclosure: this is in an expensive part of the country and with an expensive kind of dental practice specializing in the vanities of the wealthy. Not that that’s my own demographic; I just live near those people. I could probably get it done at a pretty good discount someplace else in the USA.
I do know folks who’ve done the dental tourism thing and spent 3 weeks or whatever down in Costa Rica and gotten a job that looks as good for more like $5K all-in including hotels & meals. No clue how their work will age versus my own. I chose to skip that route largely around questions of quality, longevity, and any subsequent repairs or rework as I age.
My bottom line:
If I was the OP the big question I’d be asking myself is “What, if anything is wrong with the condition of the cutting surfaces that makes this a health-improving move? And why now?”.
Assuming getting the work done makes sense, the next question is whether this a dentist that routinely does this sort of work. Any dentist is “qualified”, but someone who does this stuff all day will probably produce a better outcome than someone who doesn’t.
But first answer the question: “What is wrong enough with my teeth functionally and cosmetically to suggest this will improve my life, irrespective of cost?”
Are you sure it was “crowns” and not “caps”? I’ve heard of people getting their teeth capped for cosmetic or other reasons, but I’ve never heard of someone getting all their teeth crowned. That just seems unnecessarily ridiculous and expensive.
Not to argue or disagree with this method, which may be effective for some, but I tried this some time between 5 to 10 years ago-- I bit on (heh) a ‘whitening for life’ promotional offer from my dentist. The initial in-office treatment left me with teeth that didn’t really look much whiter, and they hurt for a couple days afterward. They sent me home with the chemicals and tooth trays to continue doing it at home, but I never did it again. The concern over what the chemicals were doing to my teeth vs. the results was just not a good tradeoff for me.
Great info, thanks! I had kind of resigned myself to teeth that, so far, are perfectly serviceable but far from movie-star perfect. My front teeth have chipped, been bonded and chipped again (when the bonding inevitably fails) several times over the years. The point that getting work done is good not only for cosmetic reasons, but avoids problems down the road, is a good one.
Hmmm…my wife and I have been talking about a Costa Rica vacation… 
I agree. Caps are a common solution for teeth that aren’t attractive.
I had one implant. That went ok, but a whole mouthful of drilling into the jaw would be very unpleasant. (That’s how a implant is secured)
I second this opinion. My dentist pushed me to do their whitening procedures, strongly implying the reason was to improve the health of my teeth. Only when I questioned her hard on this did she admit there was no health benefit, only a change in appearance.
Besides, teeth aren’t supposed to be white! There’s an off-white color, “ivory”, that is literally named for teeth. As people age, teeth grow more yellow and also more translucent. I always find very nearly white teeth bizarre and a bit alarming.
At 69 years old it’s not worth the money, the time, and/or the possible excessive pain. Even if the pain is not excessive your’e going to feel some ‘discomfort’ as they call it no matter what. Get a few implants to hold bridgework or dentures if you want your teeth to look better but as long as you can chew your food consider less expensive and simpler methods.
I believe (having looked into this a little) that if you are doing all your teeth at once, then all the upper teeth and all the lower teeth are connected, so you get two sets, like a denture. I think it’s a total of 8 screws in the jaw, all done under sedation of course.
Has there been a recent thread that discussed whole-mouth tooth implants? I’m interested (from curiosity rather than any personal situation). I searched but couldn’t find anything very recent.
Unlike LSL GUY, I am a dentist. I will say he did a good job with his post. The most important thing mglambo is why does your dentist say you need to crown all your teeth? If they are in good shape and you want it for cosmetic reasons crowns are an option. Veneers would usually be my first choice for purely cosmetic changes. Your post doesn’t make me think you are wanting it for cosmetic reasons.
It is fairly rare for most or all of a person’s teeth to need crowns for restorative reasons. The most common reason other than gross decay would severe attrition. If it is attrition Crowns are usually the best restorative option. Plenty of people can do just fine without restoring teeth that have attrition. Most of the time it depends on how much of the height of the teeth is lost and how it impacts chewing.
Yeah, this.
Here is your answer.
See first answer above.
If it ain’t broke, etc.
Find another dentist.