Any dentists / experienced dental patients give me advice about crowns?

[fabulousmrbeagle]

Hello!
I'm a bit confused by my options.

I need a crown on an upper right pre-molar, it's visible when I smile.
The reason I need a crown is because the ill-fitting crown on the molar that meets it at the bottom fractured two of my upper teeth including this one. I had the bite adjusted 3 times, but the crown still never fitted properly against that tooth and eventually the top tooth died because of stress or too much pressure applied on biting it would seem. The dentist said I grind my teeth, I said, I grind my teeth because the crown feels so wrong and makes my gums ache when I chew on that side.

I have very small, child size teeth, and the two crowns I was fitted with previously look like they were made for a man's mouth! They are huge and stick up and out. The dentist had to file them down significantly to get them in the space and now they don't even look tooth shaped. Also the colour is horrible, it's a grey-white colour, it's meant to be shade A2 (which I actually think is too dark for my teeth which are very light at the top but darker round the gum line). These were NHS crowns and I HATE them. I'm not sure what they are made of and forgot to ask. I think they are all ceramic crowns, they are tooth coloured. Is that right? I paid NHS fees and these are molar teeth? Or are they more likely to be ceramic bonded to metal? I can't see any metal line around the base of the crown but the colour is a bit grey.

My dentist has said that I can have another crown like this on my upper tooth, or I can have a zirconium crown (private, slightly more expensive), or an all porcelain crown (private, much more expensive). I have read that porcelain crowns are more fragile but most aesthetic, so I'm a bit worried it might fracture like my tooth did...Also how are they any different from the 'ceramic' crowns I already have?

Can anyone recommend which crown is likely to be most aesthetic on a visible tooth?
Also, am I likely to get a better fitting crown for my tiny teeth if I go private? Or is it going to be the same technician who made my NHS crowns last time?

I will bring this up with the dentist when I get my root canal but as he gets more money for the private dentistry, and claims he prefers doing private dental work, I don't think I'm getting impartial advice.

Thanks!

I don't think your dentist sounds very good. Crowns especially seem to bring out the worst (money-grabbing) in some dentists. If you're in an area where there are other dentists available it would be worth shopping around to try and find someone who will do the work you want/need.
I have three crowns and they're very different. Two are on molars: one is a CEREC (where they "print" the tooth in a couple of hours from the shape of your own tooth and you have the root canal while it's being made). This is very expensive privately but my dentist had just got the machine and wanted to try it out so I got it for the NHS Band 3 rate. It's not bad but a slightly odd texture. The other is a more "standard" NHS molar crown, which has been cleverly made to look like a back tooth with a massive filling in it. My other one is a pre-molar crown and it's lovely - feels like a real tooth but better. This must be porcelain I think, and again cost only the band 3 price.
In my experience all crowns seem to be uncomfortable at first. I wonder if they're made slightly bigger so that the dentist can do any fine-tuning themselves. Yours should have sorted it so that your bite wasn't left out of alignment, and certainly not enough to cause another tooth to crack. The dentist shouldn't have just left you with this problem.
Sorry, this is really long! In summary, if you live in London it's worth giving these nhsdentist.com a go, that's where I had my premolar crown done, and the root canal treatment. Otherwise, you should be able to get an aesthetic crown for a nearly front tooth on the NHS and avoid shelling out private fees. Sounds like your dentist is trying it on a bit.

Hello, can I gate crash this? I also fractured my premolar, top left, but the dentist said it was beyond repair and took it out. He said I needed a denture to keep the other teeth in place until healing was complete and an implant put in. I was unsure but felt I needed to comply. The denture is a nightmare, it's one tiny tooth, supposedly on a soft base which is actually rigis, sharp and extremely uncomfortable. Every time I try to use it my gums get really sore and it's so tight it feels like a clamp.

I've called and am going back next week but feel really angry. This denture cost £500, was supposedly vital for a good result and is awful.

Any dentists able to comment? Also quoted £2k for the implant.

Thanks in advance and sorry OP but so similar I thought I might tag on.

2k is average price for an implant but I often use a Maryland bridge as temporary rather than a denture if possible. Patients tolerate them far better and often opt to keep them long term rather than have the implant if the cosmetic result is good. I have one patient who likes them so much he has 5 of them.
A lot of dentists are not confident using them but it's worth asking.