Crown and Cap are pretty much used interchangeably - they are chunks of gold shaped to resemble a tooth (if it is going to be visible, it is covered with porcelin to match the natural teeth).
The tooth is ground down to a core (with or without a root canal (drilling out the nerve(s) in the tooth, and packing the hole(s) with filling)) and the cap/crown is cemented onto the core.
This is the “final” fix for soft teeth which are always developing cavities. It is painful, expensive, and sometimes not even permanent.
Brush and floss so you never find out from personal experience.
I’ve had extensive dental work. I’ve apparently got soft enamel, and it’s an uphill battle to keep the teeth sound. Mr. Legend, on the other hand, had wonderful teeth with nary a cavity. He also had gum disease, aggravated by heart medication. He now has full dentures, top and bottom, and I know he’d much rather have teeth, if that had been an option.
I don’t know if this holds true for people who aren’t taking the drugs he was, but his dentist and cardiologist both told him to take B vitamins daily. I’m not sure of the exact reason, but I know it was originally recommended by the dentist. If you don’t have prescription coverage for special toothpaste, you can buy Gel-Kam fluoride over the counter. It comes in more than one flavor (I’m partial to the cinnamon), and you brush it onto your teeth before bed.
I would love to meet whoever decided that teeth and eyes are not part of our bodies for purposed of health insurance.
featherlou…I can only sympathize, I know it’s gotta hurt! My old man’s a tough SOB and I’ve seen him nearly in tears over this shit. My mom…bless her heart, it hurts me to think about it.
Kalhoun , kiss my ass… just kidding, take good care of 'em…
In all honesty though I have had a couple of accidents which resulted in two of my teeth being damaged. The first was when I was eight years old. I was walking a pipe and a girl walking another beside me fell and grabbed me. I fell too and broke a front tooth almost in half. The dentist filed it back straight and it did come back to it’s normal place. He said it would, since I was so young.
But, God-damn I remember how bad it hurt with that raw nerve exposed. Especially when he put that damned grinder to it and him and dad said “be still boy you can’t feel that”, “you already had a shot for the pain”.
BULLSHIT I SAID…it hurt like hell!
Then again about 15 years ago I was unloading some gas pipe out in the oil field to be treated for resale and the dumb SOB on the truck was slinging the pipe off the bed and a joint got sideways and slid about 30 feet and hit me square in the chin. We’re talking about a 250# piece of 2 1/2" x 30’ piece of steel…moving FAST! Knocked me off my feet and threw me about 15 feet from where I was standing. When I stood up I was PISSED…I could taste the chalk in my mouth when I spit out about a third of my top left back molar (a hole about the size of a kitchen match head).
Everybody was laughing until I turned around. The white tee-shirt I was wearing was covered in blood totally…I didn’t even realize that my chin was laid open to the bone. I was pissed off about my tooth!
Anyway, I went to emergency and got stitches and went back to work. The tooth…didn’t do anything about it. Just got some special toothpaste for sensitive teeth. It healed up, (ain’t that some shit) and has never given me any trouble since. I’ve got a dentist with an open file on me, if I ever have any dental problems as a result of the accident and have never needed it.
Last time I went to the dentist, he checked me out, said I had the best teeth he’d ever seen except for a couple of chips and told me I didn’t even need them cleaned. I let him clean them anyway!
just kidding, take good care of 'em…