Dental implants consist of several pieces, the titanium screw, the abutment, and the crown. The crown attaches to the abutment and provides you with a porcelain tooth that looks and feels like a real tooth. A well-made dental crown should last you at least a decade, but dental crowns often last much longer than that. However, sometimes, you might need to replace a crown.

The following issues are the most common reasons why you might need to replace a dental implant crown.

1. Chips or Cracks

Dental crowns are very durable and can last many decades. But if a patient grinds their teeth regularly or eats hard foods often, micro-cracks will occur over time. Just like micro-cracks in enamel, micro-cracks in porcelain gradually worsen until a crack forms or the crown chips.

Porcelain is brittle once its surface is breached, much the same as enamel. Because of this, if you see a chip or a crack, you might need to replace your crown.

2. Looseness

Dental crowns can loosen over time. But this doesn't mean that the implant itself is damaged. Sometimes, the abutment that holds the crown in place is damaged. And the cement holding the crown in position may have deteriorated, causing the crown to become loose. While not true of every case, loose crowns sometimes need replacing.

3. Pain and Inflammation

The gum tissue around a crown sometimes reacts to the presence of the dental crown. This often happens when a crown irritates the gum tissue. Sometimes this happens quickly, but sometimes, this may happen over the course of a few years. Catch this problem early enough, and your dentist can replace a crown before any more damage occurs.

4. Gum Recession

If you wait too long to replace a dental crown when gum irritation occurs, the gum tissue could recede. In other words, the gums pull away from the roots of the teeth or implants. This increases the risk of implant failure.  

In this case, your dentist can remove the crowns and treat the gum disease before your dental implant fails. They can then create a new crown for the dental implant.

If you experience any of these issues, contact your dentist as soon as possible. While a damaged or weakened crown isn't an emergency, the problem will only worsen as time goes on. If you lose the crown, then your implant will be open to invasion by oral bacteria. The best thing to do is to repair or replace your crown quickly.