 So what is a dental crown and why would you get a dental crown opposed to getting a filling? So maybe you've gone to the dental office and they're telling you you need to get a crown. You probably have an existing filling. And you might be wondering, well, why don't I just redo my filling? Why do I need a crown? So let me explain this for you in some simple terms. So it's much easier to understand because in the dental office, they can make it very confusing, can't they? So what a crown does is a crown adds strength to the tooth. I highly recommend crowns, but this is why. This is why also you might not need a crown. So crowns add strength to the tooth. It's a full crown coverage and I'm going to show you images in a moment. It's a full coverage crown that goes right on top of your existing tooth. They do have to prep the tooth a little bit to put the crown over top, but that's easy. What a filling does, how that is different is it's a filling that goes inside your tooth and fills those areas that need to be filled. A crown would be recommended if you have a really large filling in the tooth and if they go to redo the filling, they're compromising the tooth structure. Anytime you redo a filling, you need to take away more of the natural tooth, the enamel, which isn't always the best. So the dentist might be worried if they redo the filling, they might actually make things worse. So it's just better to get a crown over top. So let me show you guys a couple of things here. So this is a gold crown. You may or may not want a gold crown depending on if your filling is in the back that they're going to be replacing. Gold is the strongest. So this is why this might be the best option for you. But notice how that cap goes over top of the whole tooth. But don't worry, you can get a crown. Oh, sorry guys. You can get a crown that is tooth colored, so you can't even see it. You can't tell the difference. Everybody looking at you wouldn't be able to say, hmm, they have a crown. It just looks like a normal tooth, but it adds strength over the entire thing. Let's say you wanted to stick with a filling, so you just wanted a silver filling. So what a silver filling is, is it goes directly into the tooth, but it doesn't cover the whole thing. A silver filling can be strong enough, but if the dentist is telling you that it's such a large filling that they're worried about the tooth chipping, a crown is recommended. That is why. Because remember, that crown will go over the entire tooth adding strength, and that crown will likely outlive you. You wouldn't need to touch it again. So a crown is an added expense depending on where you're located. A crown could be anywhere from $800 to $1,000 or more, whereas a filling to replace that could be $100 up to usually $600 depending on the size, pardon me, depending on the size. So there is a cost difference. If I had a filling that looks like this, I would personally want a crown on top of that because I would be worried if that filling chipped or my tooth chipped, you can't just replace a filling on a poorly chipped tooth. You can't. What might end up happening is you're going to lose that tooth. If that chip is so bad that it goes below the gumline, you're going to have to lose that tooth, meaning they're going to pull out what was a perfectly good tooth. But to prevent that from happening, this is where a crown comes in handy. A crown cannot chip. If it does chip, something's wrong with the crown. Go to your dentist and they'll replace it for you. Crowns are the strongest thing possible. It cannot chip. So you're basically having that tooth now for life because the crown goes over top and you're safe. You're good to go. Getting a filling, it could chip anytime because you have the tooth structure. You have the filling, that kind of thing. But keep in mind, you guys, you might not need a crown at all. If you have a small composite filling, a white filling, or you have a small silver filling, you don't need a crown on small fillings. If you're filling, again, looks like this, that's pretty large. It's covering a lot of surfaces of the tooth. I would suggest getting a crown. Comment below if you guys have any questions. I know this can be a very confusing topic, but I do recommend crowns overall to protect the tooth if you have a large filling. If you have such a large cavity that you don't even have a filling on the tooth yet, but the dentist is saying to, hmm, you have a cavity, we need to fill that tooth, but I would recommend going straight to a crown because of the size, it does make sense. Comment below though if you guys have any questions. I've been a dental professional since 2015, or sorry, 2005. I've been a dental professional since 2005, since I was 19 years old and I currently have my own mobile dental hygiene practice, so I get these questions and I have these conversations with patients all the time, so let me know in the comments if you have any questions and I hope this helped give you guys a better understanding and I will see you guys all very soon in the next video.