If your temporary crown has just come off into your hand, or into a mouthful of toast, here is the good news first: it was made to come off. The little cap was fixed with a soft cement on purpose, so this happens to a lot of people, and it is usually one of the smallest things in dentistry to put right.
Why did my temporary crown fall off?
Because a temporary crown is only ever meant to be a guest. When a tooth is prepared for a crown, it is shaped down, a scan goes off to a dental laboratory, and the crown takes about two weeks to make. The temporary covers the tooth for that fortnight, and at the fit, it comes off and the real crown goes on.
Your dentist has to be able to lift it off without a fight, so it is held on with a cement that is soft on purpose. It is a bit like putting a poster up with Blu Tack because you know it is coming down in a fortnight. Superglue would hold the poster better, and you would lose the paint taking it down.
That softness is exactly why it lets go. Sticky and chewy food is the usual culprit: a toffee, chewing gum, a chewy bread roll, anything that grips the cap and pulls. Floss pulled up and out of the gap can do it too, which is why sliding it out sideways is kinder for now.
So if yours came off, you did nothing wrong, and nothing is failing. It held on exactly as gently as it was meant to.
What should I do tonight?
Start with the temporary: rinse it and keep it safe in a little pot or an envelope, because a temporary that is still whole can very often go straight back on. If it has vanished altogether, down the plughole or into the bin with the muffin wrapper, that is fine too: a new temporary can be made.
Then look after the tooth. It has been shaped smaller to make room for the crown, and with some of its outer layer gone it can be tender to cold for a while. Brush it gently with the rest of your mouth, because food likes to pack in against it, chew on the other side, and go easy on very hot or very cold drinks.
If it is tender, a pharmacist is a lovely person to know tonight. nhs.uk says that “A pharmacist can also give you advice on how to manage common symptoms affecting your mouth and teeth”, and “a lost filling or crown” is right there on its list. If you are in pain while you wait, “you can ask a pharmacist for advice on taking painkillers, such as paracetamol or ibuprofen”, in nhs.uk’s words, and then follow the packet.
Can I stick my temporary crown back on at home?
Often, yes, as a stopgap. Look inside the temporary and you will see a hollow copy of your prepared tooth, so it only sits properly one way round. Turn it until the shapes line up, press it gently home with a finger, and close your teeth together slowly. If it sits snugly and your bite feels like your own, it can stay there until you are seen; if it works loose again, take it out before you sleep, so it is not swallowed in the night.
If it rocks, will not go all the way down, or your teeth meet on it before they meet anywhere else, leave it out. A temporary sitting high takes the whole force of every bite on its own, which is how a loose cap ends up cracked. Pop it back in its pot and bring it with you.
What to hold it on with is just the kind of thing the pharmacist can help with. The one thing to leave in the drawer is the household glue, because it was never made for the inside of a mouth, and it has to be cleaned off the tooth and out of the cap before anything proper can be done. Superglue tonight only makes tomorrow’s appointment longer.
How long can a tooth go without its temporary crown?
Well, the honest answer has no number of days in it, and here is why.
Your teeth are always leaning gently on each other, like books on a shelf. Pull one book out and the ones beside it start to tip into the space. Teeth do the same thing, only slowly: the neighbours can drift in a little, and the tooth it bites against can edge closer to fill the space. Meanwhile your permanent crown is being made to a scan of your mouth as it was on the day the tooth was prepared, so if the teeth around it move, even a little, a crown made to the old shape can stop fitting the new one.
So the temporary has two jobs. It keeps the tooth comfortable, and it holds the tooth’s place in the row. Even if your fit is only a few days away, it is still worth ringing your dentist, because they can tell you whether to come in now or hold on until then, and a temporary back on early is a far smaller job than a crown that no longer fits.
Who should put it back: my own dentist or an emergency dentist?
Your own dentist first, if the crown work was done somewhere else. They have the notes, and your permanent crown is already being made for that tooth. It is a proper reason to ring, too: nhs.uk lists “a broken or loose filling, denture, crown, bridge or veneer” among the reasons to ask for an urgent or emergency dental appointment.
If you cannot be seen there, that is what an emergency appointment is for. At Designer Smiles in Solihull we set out to see anyone with a dental emergency the same day in practice hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm), and you do not need to be a patient of ours already. Every way to be seen today in Solihull is in our guide to emergency dentists.
The emergency appointment is £27.90, the same figure as the NHS urgent charge, and it covers the examination and getting you out of pain. For a crown, our emergency page lists “a crown that has come off cleaned and recemented, or a temporary fitted”. Anything the tooth needs beyond the visit is priced from the fee guide and told to you before it is done, and you pay on the day. How the same-day emergency appointment runs is set out on that page, and what an emergency dentist costs in Solihull sets our fees beside the ones other practices publish. Outside practice hours it is £150, and out-of-hours dentists in Solihull have a guide of their own.
My permanent crown fell off: can it go back on?
Very often, yes. A permanent crown was fixed with a proper cement and has usually sat there quietly for years, so when one comes off there is normally a reason: the cement underneath has worn away with time, or decay has crept in under the edge and softened the tooth it was holding on to.
That is why the dentist looks at the tooth first. A loose crown can be recemented, and one that has come off in one piece, from a tooth still sound underneath, can often be cleaned up and put straight back on. Tonight, everything above still applies, the glue drawer included.
What if there’s hardly any tooth left under my crown?
This is the one that frightens people, usually because there is a chunk of tooth stuck inside the crown in their hand and not much at all in the mirror. Take a breath. There are still good options, and which one is right depends on what is left below the gum.
If the root is sound, a new crown can be made for it; where too little tooth stands above the gum for a crown to grip, the dentist builds a core first, sometimes anchored by a small post into the root, the way a wooden dowel holds a chair leg in place. A metal crown here is from £332.10, a white crown from £450, and a porcelain or ceramic crown from £800. If the decay or the break has reached the nerve, a root canal comes first: £550 for a front tooth or canine, £850 for a molar, because a molar has three or four canals to clean and a front tooth one.
And if the root itself has split, or there is nothing left to build on, the kindest answer is to take the tooth out: a simple extraction is from £76.60, a surgical extraction from £250. With the crowns and the extractions, the figure for your own tooth is written down at the examination before anything is done. The gap can be filled afterwards, and the crowns, bridges and veneers page sets a bridge and an implant side by side.
Whichever it is, the emergency visit makes the tooth safe first, and the repair is usually a second visit, planned and priced once the pain has gone, with 0% finance through Tabeo for the larger repairs. What decides the price of a crown has a guide of its own.
How long does a crown last once it has been recemented?
There is no honest single number for a recemented crown, because it depends on why it came off. Crowns in general commonly last ten years and often much longer, and what ends them is decay creeping under the edge or a crack in the tooth beneath.
A crown that came off because the old cement wore out, put back onto a sound tooth, can simply carry on with its job. A crown that came off because of decay underneath needs the decay dealt with first, and then the question is whether the old crown still fits the tooth that is left or a new one is the better buy.
So there is the whole of it. A temporary crown that falls off was built to come off easily. Keep it, keep the tooth clean, chew on the other side, and ring your dentist in the morning so the teeth around it stay where the new crown expects them. If your own dentist cannot see you, ring us on 0121 709 3821; in practice hours you can be seen the same day, for £27.90, with the tooth made comfortable first.
