Many people will have a dental emergency sometime during their lifetime. A dental emergency could be a toothache, a problem with your braces, or it could be something such as chipped, cracked or broken teeth. If your dental problem is one of these last three, you never want to wait to see the dentist. A chipped tooth is easily corrected, but you want to make sure you don’t have a cracked or broken tooth. These dental emergencies lead to infections quickly and could lead to you actually losing your tooth. Don’t take a chance on your dental health! Receive help for chipped, cracked or broken teeth and restore your smile through restorative dentistry!

Prevent Tooth Weakness and Decay

Not all dental emergencies come from tooth decay, but many do. Tooth decay affects too many millions of Americans. It is more prevalent than gum disease, and gum disease already affects more than 64 million American adults! In fact, the National Institutes of Health reports that tooth decay (also known as cavities) is the most prevalent chronic disease in the United States. Many people have teeth that are decaying and don’t even know it. This is because they are not brushing and flossing their teeth enough. You must brush and floss your teeth at least twice a day or your teeth will decay. If they decay, the tooth enamel becomes weak, which can lead to toothaches, broken teeth, easy chips, cracks and more. Bottom line: brush and floss your teeth every single day, multiple times a day and do all that you can to avoid tooth decay.

Emergency Dental Care

Did you know that only about 65% of people visit their dentist each year? This statistic stays consistent from year to year in the United States. The American Dental Association recommends that every patient visit the dentist at least twice a year for comprehensive exams and dental cleanings. However, as you can see from the statistic, not enough people are following that recommendation.

Many people only visit the dentist if they begin to have tooth sensitivity or pain, or if they have a dental emergency such as chips, cracks or broken teeth. Chips and cracks can happen from tooth decay or from simply eating food that is too hard for your teeth. Broken teeth generally stem from sports activities or other physical-contact sports that bring injuries. When something suddenly happens that causes you to chip, crack or break a tooth, get dental attention right away. Many people seek medical attention, but you really need dental attention unless you have knocked-out teeth or additional injuries.

What to Do About Chips, Crack and Broken Teeth

What you do after getting chips, cracks or broken teeth is very important. A chipped tooth is generally not that serious. You can chip a tooth by biting into something hard or through eating. Chewing on the end of a pencil or other hard objects that you’re not supposed to can also chip a tooth. Avoid chewing on anything that is not a food and don’t open containers with your mouth. These can cause cuts, chips and even broken teeth.

If you chip a tooth or chip a filling (sometimes they can come out), then call our office and schedule an appointment to get the filling fixed. You might feel slight tooth sensitivity or soreness if you’ve chipped a tooth. A big chip will hurt more. You want to be especially careful with cracked or broken teeth though, or you could lose your entire tooth. For those dental emergencies, do the following:

• Cracked Tooth – Many patients don’t know that their tooth is cracked. They might know that something hurts, but you will know you have a crack if you can see it, or if you have a sharp pain when you bite down. A crack is actually a serious dental emergency, as your tooth could break more if you don’t seek dental attention right away. A crack also quickly leads to infection, and infections are really bad if they get into your blood stream. With any pain in your mouth, call us right away.
• Broken Teeth – You want to get immediate dental attention. Call us (even if it’s the weekend) as soon as you have a broken tooth or broken teeth. Rinse the area with warm water. Put a cold compress over the facial area of the injury. Then recover any broken tooth fragments that you can. We can restore your tooth if you keep all the pieces, but if you don’t get our help right away, you can look your entire tooth.

What Is Restorative Dentistry?

Some patients might have broken teeth in the form of a knocked-out tooth. This is very serious, as your tooth has completely been broken off or the whole thing has come out of your mouth. If this happens to you, hold the tooth by the crown (not the root) end. Rinse, but do not clean or handle the tooth more than necessary. Either put the tooth back in the socket and hold it in place with gauze or carry it to our office in a cup of water or milk. Whether you have a knocked out tooth, or cracked or broken teeth, we can fix them through restorative dentistry.

These are dental services that restore your smile to what it once was after tooth decay, gum disease or a dental injury has happened. We can provide fillings for areas affected by tooth decay or bond your tooth fragments together to restore a tooth. If you have infection, we provide root canal treatment to clean your tooth of that infection, and top it off with a strong dental crown. If you have broken teeth or knocked-out permanent teeth, you may need dental implants. Every dental emergency is different, but we can fix what was damaged and restore your smile if you seek immediate dental attention. For any emergency dental situation (including a toothache), call Mountain Aire Dentistry at (303) 731-7755!