She was a bright and chirpy 7 year-old when she visited us for a cavity in her baby molar. We incidentally saw, that the yet to fully erupt permanent molars were hypoplastic. (The enamel is not formed and under mineralised) My then Pedodontist Dr Seema Raina suggested that we put prefabricated stainless steel caps on them, so they do not get cavities and continue to form and mature protected inside the cap.
It was a challenge to explain to the parents about the invasive and unsightly caps, as a preventive measure. We decided to broach the subject to them, knowing that this would be good in the long run. It is nice that they saw the merit of the procedure. We put those two metal crowns for their 7 year old pretty princess.
It worked wonders as the tooth continued to calcify inside the crown instead of decaying with cavities. Such teeth tend to have large hollow cores and often need root canal treatment.
She got her braces with us so we could monitor it periodically and once she was 18 n the teeth had fully erupted we could replace the stainless steel crowns with emax ones that defy detection. It was a delight to see the tooth maturation keep the timelines – our treatment objective.