A VERY INTERESTING FRACTURED TOOTH CASE WITH A GREAT OUTCOME
I received a text from a patient yesterday alerting me that he has a dental emergency – he fractured his front tooth off. I had him take a picture of the broken tooth and his smile to get an idea of what needed to be done. He had 25% percent of the crown left with a clean break, no pain. The tooth never needed any dental work prior to this
Oddly enough he had been to the doctor only 5 days earlier with swelling in the area. He was placed on antibiotics and the swelling went down.
This patient has a severe clenching condition, and that was the cause of the fractured tooth. He clenched so hard that he snapped off this tooth. We fabricated a bite guard for his condition only 2 weeks earlier.
There are 3 options when someone has this kind of accident: pull the tooth and replace it with an implant or bridge if not salvageable; perform a root canal, place a post and then crown the tooth; or a rare option which is to recement the broken part if it’s intact, then do a root canal and place a post in the space. This is a great service if it will work because you get to keep the tooth and don’t need a crown.
With the aid of the photo I was able to determine that there was a good chance that the recementing the broken part would work. I was able to line all of this up with the endodontist who had an opening in his schedule and was able to complete all the steps. I contacted the patient all is well. He also has his bite guard to help protect his teeth from clenching while sleeping.