Maybe you or someone you might know of might have heard of this, and this might sound familiar to you.
“One day, you're chewing, chewing, chewing, and suddenly, CRUNCH! “Oh no, something's happened, something's broken!” And you spit out this piece of white or silver material.
So I guess, what do I do then?
So what that piece is most likely, a broken part of your tooth, or sometimes maybe even a part of your previous filling.
A broken tooth can cause all sorts of other issues, like you know, obviously the first immediate feeling you might feel is “Oh Gosh, it's sharp. It's sharp when I run my tongue over it, it's sensitive. It's painful when I brush, it's painful when I drink water, and I can't live with this, I can't eat!”
Let’s look into the options to fix broken teeth. Look, of course this advice is general in nature, and it's hard for me to tell you exactly what works best for you. The best thing to do would be to see your local professional or, you know, call Tooth Heaven to find an appointment, and then the dentist could actually run some tests, and work out what works better for you. But generally there are a few options to fix broken teeth.
- Do Nothing:
- We could leave it alone. Why leave it alone? It depends on how big that broken piece is. If it's a very superficial, really just a little tiny bit, then maybe it's okay. However, if it’s a big chunk, it’s a different story.
- Of course the good thing about leaving it is that there's no immediate cost. But the problem is I normally say there's no immediate cost because as the hole stays there, it's going to get bigger, and more bits and pieces are going to come off along with it as days go by, and that small hole yesterday, will turn into a large humongous hole in a week's time. And then with bigger holes come pain, with pain comes it makes it harder to fix. And when it's harder to fix, it becomes very, very expensive.
- And I normally like to say this, you know, you know, it's a common misconception that people think that if I don't feel pain means its means I'm all right. Then only coming in to fix the problem when its painful, but that, you know, well, I'll probably say approach with caution with that. From experience, I see people coming in with pain, it's usually too far gone by then, and it's too hard to fix it. It gets very, very expensive to fix as well. And it gets more involved as well. So again, going back to the point, the topic here, I mean the first option is you can leave it.
- Extraction (Taking the Tooth Out):
- The second option is you can pull it out. You know, if it's a, if it's a huge, huge piece of tooth that's broken off, that might be the only option to go, but it's still an option.
- Of course with taking out the tooth, the good thing is it's quicker and cheaper, and you know, you're over and done with, but I guess the problem is if you lose a tooth, , depending on where you lose it, you don't want to pull out a front tooth, because everybody's going to see you from a mile away. But also you don't want to lose a tooth at the back because those are your big chompers. If you lose them, what are you going to be using? And you know, if you want to think about getting a tooth put in there, it gets really, really expensive, and it never feels the same as your own natural teeth.
- On top of that, with chewing, I normally say teeth are like a row of books on the shelf as well. You know, if you take one book out, do you know what happens to the other teeth? Yup, they cave in, they fall in. So as they tip in and fall in, food gets stuck very easily, which means you're more prone to having holes. And that means you're more prone to losing other teeth as well. So, so it's like, it's what I call a snowball effect. It just gets worse and worse over time.
- Filling:
- Now another, another, another option to fix it is obviously fill it. It goes without saying, filling it, look, the good thing about it is that it's generally cheaper and quicker. And you know, we don't use metal fillings anymore because they cause more problems than good. And obviously they don't look nice, but I use white, white fillings these days. And they're just as strong, and looks brilliant, kind of to tell where the tooth, where the filling is.
- But I suppose the downside of those things is look, you know, depending on the size of the hole, or how much material we need to use to fix it up, now, studies have shown that the bigger the filling, the more likely it will chip again. “So why is that so?” Because if you think about it, the bigger the filling, which mean the bigger the filling that we have to put in, it means that there, there isn't that much tooth left. If there isn't that much tooth left, the filling needs teeth to stick on and there's not enough, then it's going to come off very easily, or worse still the remaining teeth that's left there will be brittle, and it will break a little bit easier.
- So I guess with fillings depending on the size, it might be a good option, but if it's too big, it might be worth considering other options there.
- Crown (Cap):
- Then the other option would be to put a crown. And essentially what it is, to put it simply, is just putting a cover over the top of a tooth.
- Now the problems of a crown, is the number of appointments. It usually takes about two appointments to, to get something like that done. It also costs a little bit more than, than just fillings.
- But I guess the upside is, is depending on the materials you use, these things can last anywhere between 20 to somethings up to 50 years. I've seen some people walking around for 50 years having the same crown in their mouth there. So that shows how durable these materials are.
- Now it's a common myth that people think that you might need to do a root canal beforehand. No, no, no, no, no, you don't! That's an old way of doing things, and we don't do that anymore. Not unless we have to. But these days it's almost unheard of to do a root canal before the crown.
Those are the four general options as to how we can fix broken teeth.
The best way to determine which way works better for you would be to book yourself in with your local professional or give us a call at Tooth Heaven, and then we can sit down, run some tests on it, and figure out which actually has more benefits for you. And then let you decide whatever you want.
Choose from the following options to find out more: