“I was just chewing and my tooth is broken! I spit out a little piece there. What do I do? What do I do!?”
That's a very common scenario in a dental clinic. Especially during the whole COVID pandemic and we find that it's getting worse. We do see a lot more people coming in with broken teeth and loose fillings and what not there.
So, it does happen and don't feel bad for it happening. It does happen. And we see on a regular basis. Now it's not the end of the world.
There is a fix and the advice that I'm going to give you right now, is obviously general in nature. It's very hard for me to tell you exactly what to do, to suggest the options for you when I haven't actually seen your tooth there. So, these options I'm going to give you on how to fix broken teeth are only general in nature. So I suppose what do I do if I have a broken tooth? Now, I suppose the first thing to do is contact your dentist.
How we approach it really depends on several factors.
- How big the missing piece is?
- Where is it broken off?
- Are you in any pain?
- Is it? Is it? Has it been or treated before?
- And look there are many, many, many, many factors that might influence what options you might have.
But generally, in my opinion there are four options.
- Do Nothing
- The first option is you can leave it as it is. So, you know, if it's not hurting, we're not going to, you don't really, you know. It's not a must that at the end of it all you have to do a filling.
- The good thing about leaving is there's no cost. Is that there is no cost. But the problem is it's not an immediate cost because generally is a general thumb when you get a little piece broken off, more bits and pieces will fall off over time. So that small little tiny hole that you might feel your tongue, right now, will most times be a large, big hole several years or several months down the track.
- So of course the bigger the hole, the more expensive the costs will be down the track and the more complex it is to fix it.
- Filling
- Well, I guess the other option would be to fill it.
- You know, again depending on size of the hole, depending how deep, or the sort of thing. You can actually fill the hole up.
- cheaper and quicker.
- White filling
- But I guess the downside of the white fillings are depending on the size of the holes. If it is small, that isn't an issue. But if they're big, generally studies have shown that any tooth that's sort of broken, you know, more than half, half or more the size of a tooth there.
- There's a very high chance that you might need to replace the tooth every four to five years. More a piece or two, a piece of filling every four to five years. And there's a risk of things or cracks propagating or forming as well. So we're kind of, again depending on the size of the hole and where it is as well. It might be a good option, but it may not be the best option as well depending on the situation now. And the other option would be crowns.
- Crowns/ Caps
- cover that goes over the whole tooth or sometimes even half, sometimes even a quarter, depending on how big the piece has broken off, the broken pieces.
- CONS: Cost and many visits
- PROS: Best Quality outcome, read below:
- Because it gets sent to the lab and the lab then goes through a process or furnace process pretty much put in a huge oven, put in a very high temperature to make this material really, really, really ultra-strong. And there are many types of materials out there they can use to make a crown.
- But for today's conversation, today's purposes, we won't go through in depth, but I'll cover in the next video.
- But I suppose with the crown, yeah, like I said, the good thing is because it's fine under the furnace, it’s really pressurized and it becomes really, really strong.
- So an average, again depending on how you look after it and depending on what material as well and where you're putting it, these things can last an average between 10 years to sometimes up to 50 years. So they're longer lasting things. They're less likely to break.
- I wouldn't say it won't break, but it's quite rare to see it break anyways. And, and there's no chances of cracks propagating underneath as well. Lesser chance of that.
- I guess then the next option would be again depending on the size of the tooth that's broken, some teeth in my fine art is not salvageable anymore.
- Extraction
- There's no way of fixing it anymore. Filling won't cut it, the crown won't cut it.
- There are options for tooth replacement
And there's some pros and cons, with or without replacing the tooth which we'll cover the next video. But generally those are the four options.
You can leave it, you can fill it, you can crown it, and you can take it up and with or without a tooth replacement. So, because it's a very general advice. It's an advice in general. So it's very hard to exactly what you can do.
My suggestion is you book yourself in with your local professional or in our terms. And, in Tooth Heaven, you can book in to see one of us who will try to fit you in on a day itself. And if it's an emergency and on that day itself, it's something simple.
Again depending on what you want us to do, if it's something simple, we do it on a day, but if it's something more complex you might have to do it some other time.
But one thing's for sure, we will make sure that it stabilizes and you're out of pain. So, look, until the next time we see each other again. It was nice having you again, and thank you for watching, and I hope this has helped you in some way or form there. So thank you. Bye now.
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