Sangil-dong Dental Clinic: If an old crown doesn’t hurt, can you keep using it?

Hello.

I am the director of Seoul Bardi Dental Clinic.

Do you have a prosthetic restoration that was placed more than 10 years ago?

Sometimes patients ask whether an old restoration that was placed a long time ago can still be used a little longer.

If there is no particular discomfort, many people think, “It should still be fine,” and move on. But in many cases, they are not sure when it should actually be replaced.

Today, I’ll talk about whether an old restoration can be kept in place without replacement when there are no symptoms.

<Table of Contents>

1. Old restorations: if they don’t hurt, can you just keep using them?
2. Decay inside an old restoration, solved with an implant

1. Old restorations: if they don’t hurt, can you just keep using them?

This is a photo of the mouth of a patient in their 70s who visited our clinic for a checkup.

230313 Sangil-dong Dental Clinic: If an old crown doesn’t hurt, can you keep using it?

Looking at the restoration on the upper right, it seemed that a lot of food was getting stuck there and there was also a smell.

When I checked inside the restoration with a pointed instrument called an explorer, it went in like this...

Sangil-dong Dental Clinic: If an old crown doesn’t hurt, can you keep using it?

I thought, “Ah... the decay is probably worse than expected,” so I quickly took an X-ray.

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As expected, decay was already progressing on the X-ray as well.

When taking X-rays, metal does not let radiation pass through, so it appears white like this.

That is why it is not easy to tell whether there is decay inside a restoration.

However, when decay is severe and has spread toward the root, the root area appears dark like this tooth.

When I explained to the patient in an easy-to-understand way that the decay had already progressed significantly and that the restoration would likely need to be removed,

they said, “It hasn’t hurt all this time, so do we really have to take it off...?” That seems like a question we hear quite often.

As teeth age, the nerve can sometimes shrink. So there are cases where there are no symptoms at all.

I understand how disappointing that must feel for the patient.

But because food trapping was severe, there was a situation where even the adjacent implant could be affected,

I recommended treatment.

2. Decay inside an old restoration, solved with an implant Sangil-dong Dental Clinic: If an old crown doesn’t hurt, can you keep using it?

When we removed the old restoration, both adjacent teeth had been badly damaged by decay.

It was even loose.

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Looking at the CT scan, do you see the dark area between the roots?

When inflammation spreads and bone is resorbed, the inside of the bone appears dark, as if it is "empty."

Unfortunately, the inflammation had already spread extensively and the decay was severe, so the tooth had to be extracted.

To reduce pain during extraction, we administered anesthesia using a pain-relief anesthetic device, and I remember the patient laughing and saying they didn’t even realize they had been anesthetized.

After the extraction, when we looked at the tooth roots, inflamed tissue was attached to them.

Inflammatory tissue is one of the main causes of bone loss. With that happening, it makes sense that the bone would not be spared.

We needed to carefully graft artificial bone into the area where the bone had been lost due to inflammation.

In areas with severe inflammation, we first perform only the bone graft and wait for the ground to become firmly stabilized.

If we place the implant root on the same day, the chance of implant failure increases.

You can think of it as planting a post in mud.

Implant root placement after 2 months

After confirming that the bone had healed well, we placed the implant root.

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Through navigation surgery, it was placed stably in both the position and depth I wanted.

Implant completion Sangil-dong Dental Clinic: If an old crown doesn’t hurt, can you keep using it?

After checking the bone healing with a device, we found a high value.

It seems to have healed safely and well.

This is the completed implant restoration.

After all treatment was completed, the patient said that the unexplained bad breath seemed to have disappeared.

At Bardi Dental Clinic, we do not automatically recommend replacing an old crown with a new one. What matters more than money is "trust."

I believe my role and responsibility is to build trust through transparent diagnosis and explanation, and help patients receive treatment they can understand and accept.

Like this patient, even if an old restoration does not hurt,

it is best for the patient to have it checked at a dental clinic about once a year.

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Go to reservation phone number
02-481-4278

Sangil-dong Dental Clinic: If an old crown doesn’t hurt, can you keep using it?

| This post was written directly by Seoul Bardi Dental Clinic for the purpose of providing medical information in compliance with Article 56, Paragraph 1 of the Medical Advertising Act. The information provided is for reference only, and for symptom assessment and accurate management methods, please visit a medical institution and receive guidance from medical professionals. All procedures/surgeries performed at the dental clinic may carry individual risks (inflammation, bleeding, swelling, etc.). Please make decisions after sufficient consultation with medical professionals in advance. The treatment cases in this post were photographed with the consent of patients who completed treatment at our clinic, and the before-and-after photos were taken under the same conditions. |