"I'll fix that cracked tooth later."

I tell people, on many occasions, that they have a crack in their tooth. Some people choose to fix the cracks asap. Others choose to put it off. Some people put it off for financial reasons, which is totally understandable. But some will simply say, "I will just wait till it breaks then you can fix the break". And sometimes that works. Other times it ends up like this tooth. There was a crack in the tooth. The crack progressed until the tooth broke. The brown line represents the gum line of the patient. The tooth fractured below the gums, below the bone, and almost all the way to the end of the tooth. So what can be done about a crack that bad?! Well, there is a reason the tooth sitting on my desk on a piece of gauze. Get the cracks fixed!

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I chipped my tooth. How bad is it?

Okay so you, your child, your mom, your brother, etc. etc. just fell face first into something, over something, under something, etc. etc. and broke the corner of your/their front tooth off.

What do you do now?

Well, that depends. Lets break this down into 3 simplified categories.

The nerve of a tooth is in the middle of the tooth.

#1 If you just broke off a small corner of the tooth and it didn't reach the nerve then a simple filling is probably all you would need.

#2 If you broke off a larger corner but still didn't reach the nerve then you more then likely would need a crown.

#3 If you broke your tooth so severely that you got down into the nerve then you will need a root canal AND a crown.

And although all of this may be a traumatic experience don't worry. Your cracked and broken smile can be completely repaired and have you back to being the model you know you were born to be.

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