Polishing porcelain

I have crowns from 25 years ago on my front 3 upper teeth. One broke off and I just got it replaced with a new one. The other two crowns are polished and still look good, no stains. He filed down my new crown to make it fit and it doesn’t feel polished. It feels rough and not so smooth.

My question is if you file a porcelain crown and do not polish it, will it stain from drinking green tea? I like my dentist, but I didn’t pay 1000 for something I would have to still cover my mouth for. Any advice and information you could give me on this is greatly appreciated.
– Tammy from Texas

Tammy,
When a porcelain crown is made, it has a glasslike glaze baked onto the surface of it. This glaze is very stain-resistant, as you know, because you’ve had these other crowns for 25 years and they haven’t stained at all. But if a dentist has to grind on the front surface of a porcelain crown, that removes the glaze. The best practice when this happens would be to send that crown back to the dental laboratory and have a new glaze baked onto it. Otherwise, there are special ultra-fine diamond polishers that can be used on the porcelain to give it a glaze-like surface.

If neither one of these things has been done, then yes, the porcelain surface will feel a little rough and it will pick up stains easily.

If I were you, I would go back to my dentist and insist that this front surface be polished, because, yes, it will stain and will look bad. If your dentist doesn’t know how to polish porcelain, he can easily find out. A dental company called Brasseler makes excellent porcelain polishers, and he could just call the sales rep who would be happy to supply him with everything he needs as well as instructions in how to use them.

This blog sponsored by Naperville cosmetic dentist Dr. David Newkirk