While they occur more frequently in children, no one is exempt from a dental injury. They happen when you least expect them and in different situations. You could be enjoying a meal and suddenly feel a crack inside your mouth. You hope it was nothing, but then find out you’ve just chipped a tooth. Definitely not the most pleasant experience, right?
Or maybe your kid is at their football game, and they take a blow to their mouth. You examine them and find out they just lost a tooth. At first, you can’t believe what just happened, but then you start thinking about what you should do. However, many of us don’t know how to handle these emergencies, so here are a few tips for you when dealing with them:
A Loosened or Knocked-Out Tooth
After trauma, teeth can be displaced in different directions. They can appear elongated when they have been pulled out or shorter when they have been pushed in. If this happens, you should try to reposition your tooth to its original position using your finger and visit our dental professional in Spruce Grove as soon as possible. Our dentist may use orthodontic braces and wires to realign your tooth.
A loosened tooth may also have some pulp injury and should be monitored by our dentist every once in a while to ensure it is healthy. If not, a root canal procedure, dental extraction or dental implants in Spruce Grove may be needed.
Sometimes, the trauma is so intense that the whole tooth is knocked out. When this happens, you should handle the tooth with extreme care, avoiding touching the root and only handling it by the crown. You should rinse the tooth with cold milk and then, if possible, try to reposition it into the socket. This makes it more likely that the tooth will survive.
After doing so, bite on a gauze pad to control bleeding/pain and immediately visit our dentist. If you can’t reposition it, put the tooth in a container with milk or saliva, bite on a gauze pad, and seek dental care. Sometimes, the tooth is no longer viable and can’t be repositioned in the socket.
If this happens to a child, and the knocked-out tooth is deciduous, it shouldn’t be replaced since the adult tooth lays deeper in the socket, and any manipulation may cause more trauma.
Chipped Tooth
If this happens, don’t manipulate the tooth in any way. You must seek dental care quickly. Try to find all the fragments, store them in a container with milk or saliva, and take them to our dentist.
Broken Dentures
Many people try to fix them by themselves with super glue. However, this is not such a good idea since super glue is toxic, and this is something that you will be putting in your mouth. It’s much more reasonable to take all the fragments for repair by our dental hygienist. You may even want to ditch the dentures and look for dental implants near you instead.
Injured Lips Or Tongue
The first thing to do is control the bleeding. You can do this by applying pressure with a moist gauze or a cloth. Then, you must keep the wound clean. You can achieve this by rinsing your mouth with warm salt water or an antiseptic mouthwash.