Traumatic Dental Injuries

Dental Injury Trauma

Although everybody can experience trauma due to dental injury, it is more common with children. Dental injury can occur due to many reasons such as auto accident, a bad fall, sports accident, etc. The treatment option for you depends on the severity of the injury. Many of the dental injuries that occur affect the dental pulp. Once the dental pulp goes bad, the next treatment option would be a root canal procedure.

Types of Dental Injuries:

Chipped teeth:

This is the most common of all dental injuries that include knocked-out and dislodged teeth. The location, type, and severity of the injury determine the treatment option to use. You must see your endodontist or dentist immediately you experience an injury. The sooner you visit your dentist, the quicker the whole treatment process becomes.

Dislodgement:

There may be a dislodgement of an immature permanent tooth. In this case, if it is only a slight dislodgement, it may require only little or no attention. However, if the dislodgement is very pronounced, your dentist may have to apply some surgical or orthodontic measures in order to reset and stabilize the tooth.

For a complete dislodgement where the tooth has been outside the mouth for below an hour, your endodontist or dentist will carefully insert it back into its socket and monitor it for about four weeks as it stabilizes and sets in its original position. During this monitoring period, your dentist will watch out for any adverse reaction such as pain, swollen gums, tooth discoloration, loose tooth, etc. If there is a presence of any of these, your dentist will carry out an apexification process on the tooth root canal, which entails closing up the root with calcium hydroxide paste.

However, if there is a complete dislodgement where the tooth has been outside the mouth, and gone dry for more than an hour, the chances of restoring the full function of this tooth is low. Your endodontist or dentist will insert it back into its socket, but this time with some drugs, and monitor it for about eight weeks. You may have to avail yourself of other alternative treatments after discussing with your dentist.

Will I expect any additional treatment, or observe any special care for the tooth?

A number of factors determine the long-term health condition of the tooth. These factors include the extent of the injury, the promptness of treatment, the body’s reaction to the treatment, and type of attention given to the tooth during recovery. The key factor to restoring a dislodge tooth is promptness in treatment. This is very important in order to prevent resorption, which happens when the body regards the tooth as a foreign object, and automatically starts rejecting it. With proper care and regular visits to your endodontist or dentist during the recovery period, the chances of resorption occurring is low.