Dr. Katie To explains how metal in dental crowns, even hidden under porcelain, can trigger gum swelling and bleeding in people with metal sensitivity. Full gold or silver crowns and porcelain-fused-to-metal restorations both contain metal substructures that may cause localized gingival reactions.
I know we talked a lot about the mercury and amalgam, but one thing that we don't want to overlook too is that metal crowns can also exhibit reactions. Some crowns, you can see it's full-on gold all around, or like silver. And then there's a lot that are porcelain fused to metal. So there's metal underneath the substructure and then porcelain on top. Some patients look in and they're like, oh, I don't have any metal, but actually they may. And then some patients that are a lot more sensitive to metals, or they have some type of allergic reactions to it, then if you can see in that left picture, it's really swollen gums. The same thing on that right picture, that patient also has PFM, which is porcelain fused to metal, and you can see the gums are really red, puffy, they bleed really easily, and everything could be fine, it's just they're having reactions to it.
