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No one ever plans to have an aching tooth, and no one certainly plans to have a tooth knocked out of their mouth—that’s not where it is supposed to be! Pleasant Dental® provides emergency dental care in the South Holland, Illinois, area for when things do not go as planned. In addition to a chronic toothache or a knocked-out tooth, some cracks might be considered emergencies.
Well, it really depends on the crack. A tooth can break in all sorts of different ways. Craze lines are mainly cosmetic. They look like vertical indentations on the outside of your teeth. Nothing needs to be done unless you don’t like their appearance. Then, we can talk about veneers or bonding to cover them up and restore a nice, smooth appearance. Likewise, if the roots of the teeth are cracked, it’s tough to save these teeth. That’s when we may need to explore removing and replacing the tooth.
We may be able to save a tooth with a broken cusp. The cusp is just the medical term for the raised parts of a back tooth (molars and premolars). These fractured cusps are generally treatable because the damage only affects the visible white part of the tooth. Even a tooth with a crack right down the middle can sometimes be saved.
The natural crown is the white part of each tooth. If that crown gets fractured, we can replace the damaged parts with a new lab-made crown! The dental crown fits on top of the tooth after removing the damaged areas. Most of the time, that’s all it takes to strengthen teeth with cusp fractures. If the break extends further into the tooth, the first step may be treatment with a root canal. The dental crown is the last step in the process. A root canal is likely in your future if you, too, have a split tooth. The best next steps depend on how bad the damage is and whether it has reached the inside of the tooth.
The innermost tissue is likely involved if you have serious pain that doesn’t stop and interferes with sleep, work, and other parts of your life. The crack may have allowed bacteria and other bad stuff to enter the tooth’s nerve center, causing deep inflammation or infection. If your tooth is infected, you may also notice swelling of the gums, cheeks, and other parts of your face and mouth. Dental infections or abscesses can become medical emergencies. So, do not sit on getting treatment.
Yes. If they are not exclusively a cosmetic concern, smaller cracks can still threaten the tooth, even if they are not big cracks. This is because split teeth and root fractures can start as smaller cracks. If these modest fractures don’t get treatment, they can only get worse.
No worries! We have options to replace your tooth. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. If you are worried about a tooth, call Pleasant Dental® in Dolton right away at (708) 576-1900. With prompt care, your dentist in Dolton, near South Holland, IL, may be able to successfully fix the crack and preserve your tooth.