Macomb County Dentist Discusses Emergency Dental Care
Hi this is Dr. Robert Antolak from thegentledentist.com. We are located in Shelby Township, Michigan. That’s Macomb County, right here in Michigan. Our office phone number is 586-247-3500. What I’d like to discuss is what happens, if you have a traumatic blow to a tooth. If you are a child, or if you are an adult, what should you do about it?
If this has happened to you, and you’re watching this for the first time, please, just give your dentist a call right now. The first thing you can do is, if you have that tooth available, try to gently rinse it off with water or maybe in some milk. If you can, try place it right back in that socket, where the injury took place.
If you look at an adjacent tooth to where that one came out, just match what it looks like and just push it gently up into the socket. It’s the best thing you could do if there’s an injury.
You want to get into your dentist in less than forty-five minutes, to prevent any further damage that would not be reversible.
Most injuries that take place are basically when the tooth fractures. The tooth stays into the bone and all the impact takes place on the crown part of the tooth.
If it fractures like that, try to look for that piece that broke off. If it’s at all possible to find that piece it’s really important. The reason why it’s important is when you go to your dentist, we can approximate exactly where that fractured part of the tooth broke off. We have bonding agents that are so thin, that we can literally take the piece that’s there and bond it directly onto the fractured portion of that tooth. And that will many times, look really good, very natural. And sometimes, it can have a long term, successful result. So that’s if a decent part of the tooth is broken off.
If the nerve is exposed at that point, when you go to the dentist, you would more than likely have to remove that nerve out of that tooth because the nerve will go bad. This can be fixed by either using the fractured fragment of the tooth that broke off, or rebuild it with a tooth colored bonding material.
So that’s when the injury takes place just on the crown part of the tooth.
Next, if an injury takes place and that tooth is loose, but it’s still in the socket, if at all possible, before it starts to heal , try to push that tooth up into that correct location, okay?
Don’t over-correct it, but try to put it right into that same spot. What is happening is hemorrhaging is going on. Bleeding, trauma, and inflammation will start developing. So if you can place it up there you can displace some of that blood. If you can do that, you’ll get the tooth into the right place.
For example, this has become loose. It doesn’t fall out, but it is just loose. If you can just take it and just push it straight up into there and just hold it like that. That would be very helpful to do that. Because the root is not exposed really to the atmosphere, it still remains sterile at that point we just push it back in. Then get to the dentist and they can probably do something to help bond that to the adjacent teeth.
Now that’s if the tooth is loose. If the tooth does come out completely, like this, find out exactly where it goes in the mouth. You can usually see where it is. The front teeth look more like chisels than anything. And there’s a root that sits right there. And that root structure will go right into that area, and just push it straight back in.
If you cannot do that, if possible, you would want to store the tooth in milk or if it’s not too young of a child, just put it in the lip part of the mouth. You just hold it there until you get into the dentist. Get to the dentist as soon as you possibly can.
The reason why it’s important to do that is because there are elastic fibers that attach the tooth structure to the bone, right along that root surface of that tooth. If these dry out, you’re going to lose that tooth for sure. But if they stay moist, usually in milk, or natural saliva, once it goes in place, it will stay there.
If you are at an athletic event you can talk to your coach and see if they have a certain solution that can store a tooth right in there. Get to the dentist and many times it can be successful to re-transplant that tooth. Once in the office, it can usually be bonded to the adjacent teeth for a certain period of time, but not too long. Then sometimes they have to do root canals to remove the nerve out of that tooth.
Macomb County Dentist Discusses Emergency Dental Care
So there’s a number of different things to do. But the one important thing is to try to get to the dentist as soon as you can. So if there are any questions, please give us a call 586-247-3500. And we’ll see what we can do to help you out. Thank you. Have a great day. God bless.