Broken Dental Crown! What Do I Do?
Do you have a broken dental crown? The first thing you should is call your Houston dentist and schedule an appointment for as soon as possible. Ideally, you’ll be in the dentist’s chair at their Houston dental office within a day or two. It’s important that a broken dental crown is taken care of sooner rather than later. This is because it is usually difficult for a patient to evaluate the extent of the damage. Sometimes a patient with a small amount of pain actually has a significant injury. Luckily, a dental crown breaking typically isn’t that much of a dental emergency, because the crown simply needs to be replaced or smoothed.
If you have a broken crown, you might feel pain from any sharp edges on the remainder of the crown, which can irritate or cut your tongue. You could also feel sensitivity to air or colder liquids if the tooth is exposed. As annoying as these might be, your tooth will be fine for long enough to you to make it to you Houston dentist. In fact, sensitivity to air and cold means that the pulp in the tooth is still alive, which is great news. For the pain, you might want to apply some dental wax to the crown. This will help to keep the jagged edges from poking or cutting your mouth.
When a patient calls thinking that a crown is broken, sometimes it’s actually the tooth under the crown that has broken. In these cases, it’s much more of a dental emergency. When the patient comes into our Houston dental office, the remainder of the tooth might have decay and require endodontic treatment. These teeth don’t always hurt, because the pulp is dead. Other times, the tooth might have sustained a vertical fracture. The worst case scenario here is that it needs to be removed.
No matter what has happened to your tooth, you can call our Houston dental office whenever you have questions or concerns about your teeth! Contact us today!
