If you’ve cracked or chipped your front tooth, you have several options to restore it to full health.
Although we may try our best to keep our smiles as healthy as possible, we can’t plan for everything. There’s more to dental health than keeping up a good brushing and flossing routine, after all. Sometimes we get in an accident or are hit in the face while playing contact sports. Or we might have a bad habit of chewing on ice or grinding our teeth when we’re asleep. No matter the cause, the end result can still be the same: chipped, fractured, or broken front teeth.
Is It OK To Leave A Broken Tooth Alone?
When a front tooth is injured, most patients immediately wonder if they need to see an emergency dentist. Breaking or fracturing a tooth can seem like the worst possible thing that can happen to a smile, but not all chips and cracks are serious. If they don’t reach further than the enamel, then the damage is only cosmetic. Some aesthetic injuries can even be left alone without any issues or complications.
However, this isn’t always the case. Fractures and breaks can remove large portions of the tooth or hurt the crucial foundations keeping your tooth alive. Even shallow damage can be an urgent situation if it creates sharp edges that cut your lips and gums painfully. How can I tell if I have a dental emergency? You should visit your dentist in Bellflower immediately if you experience any of the following warning signs:
Broken tooth pain
Excessive bleeding
Sharp edges around the fracture or break
Sensitivity to hot and cold or sweets
A significant part or all of the tooth has broken off
Tooth looseness
Even relatively minor fractures can cause bigger problems down the line. A cracked tooth can leave itself vulnerable to oral bacteria, creating a passageway for dental decay to attack the inner tooth. Cavity pain usually appears once decay reaches the central dental pulp, where the tooth’s blood vessels and nerves live. The pulp is vital for your tooth’s health and survival. As it is destroyed, the tooth weakens, and its life may be at stake. Left alone, the tooth may die as the infection spreads to the nearby teeth and gums.
What Will A Dentist Do For A Broken Tooth?
With a cracked or chipped front tooth, many patients ask us, “How can I fix a broken tooth at home?” Unfortunately, chipped tooth repair isn’t as simple as following the first result for “how to fix a chipped tooth” on Google. Whether it’s a minor chip or an urgent fracture, you should never try to restore a tooth on your own. Without the right tools and experience, it is challenging to tell just how extensive the damage is and next to impossible to repair the tooth on your own correctly. In many cases, trying to DIY your tooth repair only makes the problem worse. It may even lead to a dentist’s last resort: tooth extraction.
A professional dentist will perform a series of thorough exams to determine the damage’s severity. For painless, surface-level cracks and chips, simple cosmetic treatments like tooth bonding and porcelain veneers can address any aesthetic issues you have. However, more serious and extensive damage can require a tooth filling, dental crown, or root canal.
Tooth Bonding and Porcelain Veneers
Tooth bonding and porcelain veneers are used to fix aesthetic issues patients have with their teeth. They are not exclusive to minor physical damage but are instead much more flexible. Bonding and dental veneers can also correct:
Gaps between teeth
Slight crookedness
Lumpy or misshapen teeth
Dental stains and discoloration
Teeth that are too long or short
Wear and tear
Bonding enhances a tooth’s appearance with composite resin bonded to the surface. This liquid material can fill in minor cracks and be molded to replace chips left in your tooth. It is then hardened to restore your smile to its old self.
Dental veneers cover the entire tooth’s surface with porcelain shells designed to look like natural enamel. The tooth must be prepared before placement by being slightly filed down by about 0.5mm. This lets your cosmetic dentist take care of more moderate aesthetic issues than dental bonding and prevent bulkiness from the veneer itself.
Dental Fillings and Crowns
If the damage goes further than the enamel, cosmetic dentistry won’t be enough to restore your tooth. Instead, your dentist may need to give you a filling or dental crown. With both procedures, the broken or decayed parts of the tooth are removed and smoothed down. We will then restore the tooth to its former self with either the filling or crown. Which one you need depends on the extent of the damage.
A filling can tackle narrow but deep fractures and chips with the same composite resin material as dental bonding. Like bonding, the composite is matched to your natural enamel’s shade to help the filling blend in seamlessly with the rest of the tooth. Fillings are most often used for tooth decay, particularly when the cavity has just formed but hasn’t gone too far into the tooth. They can last much longer than bonding, often only needing to be replaced every 10 or 15 years.
When a more significant portion of the tooth is missing, a tooth crown capping the entire tooth is required. Crowns are made of porcelain, metal, or a combination of both to give the tooth the strength and durability needed to withstand the pressure and chewing force a tooth faces every day. When restoring front teeth, patients almost always choose all-porcelain or porcelain-fused-to-metal (PFM) crowns to maintain the enamel’s natural look. Although they are not quite as sturdy as metal ones, porcelain crowns can last more than 25 years with great care and maintenance.
Root Canals
Once a crack, chip, or tooth infection reaches the tooth’s central dental pulp, our dentists will need to perform a root canal. During this procedure, your dentist will remove the damaged or infected dental pulp, which may involve most or all of a tooth’s root tissues. If pus-filled dental abscess forms at the root’s tip, then a root canal can help drain it.
After the root has been cleared, it will need filled and sealed off with a rubber-like material called gutta-percha. The tooth itself will then need to be reinforced with a tooth filling or crown. This strengthens the tooth and allows it to better withstand any pressure or decay in the future. Depending on the damage’s extent, the entire process is completed in either one or two appointments. Fillings typically only require a single visit, but crowns will need two—one to clear the root and place a temporary crown, and another to fit the permanent porcelain crown.
Is Tooth Extraction Necessary?
In worst-case scenarios, a root canal isn’t enough to save a tooth. If a break or infection kills too much of the dental pulp, then the tooth will die. This is often heralded by all tooth pain suddenly disappearing. The nerves are too damaged to give off the mouth’s natural warning alarm that something is wrong. At this stage, it is more than likely your emergency dentist will tell you that the tooth must be extracted.
What Happens When A Tooth Is Pulled?
Depending on the tooth’s state, there are two ways that your dentist can remove a tooth: simple or surgical extraction.
Simple Extraction
If the tooth is still visible above the gum line, then we will perform a simple extraction. The tooth is first numbed with a local anesthetic. (We can use dental sedation for complete comfort and relaxation if requested.) Once we’re sure you won’t feel a thing, our dentists will use a dental elevator tool to loosen the tooth from the gums and connective ligaments holding it tight. We can then pull it free with forceps without any trouble.
Surgical Extraction
If the tooth has broken below the gums and is fully submerged, you will need to have it surgically removed. We will make a small incision in the gums to help us access the tooth. From there, we can continue similarly to a regular tooth extraction. However, our dentists may need to cut the tooth into smaller pieces to make it easier to pry it loose. After all of the pieces are taken out, the gums are closed back up. You may need a stitch to help the healing process along.
How long does it take to get a tooth pulled? A simple tooth extraction, as its name suggests, can be finished in no time at all. The entire process can take a minimum of 20 minutes, with 3 to 15 minutes required for each additional tooth. Surgical removals are much more intensive, requiring more time. However, they are still relatively quick to complete. Most surgical extractions take an average of 45 minutes.
