How To Care For A Chipped Tooth

In order to keep teeth healthy, you need to do everything you can to keep your tooth enamel healthy. If you chip or crack a tooth in some way, you create a point of weakness that must be dealt with. While you cannot permanently take care of the tooth at home, there are some steps you can take to avoid further damage and save the damaged tooth. 

Care for a Cracked Tooth

If you have a chipped or broken tooth, you should be able to detect the damage because you will be able to feel the rough or sharp edge of the broken tooth with your tongue. In the case of a cracked tooth, you may not be immediately aware of the damage. However, you may feel pain or sensitivity after you release the pressure of a bite or after consuming a hot or cold substance. If you suspect you have a cracked tooth, call your dentist and inform them that you have a cracked tooth, and make an appointment for the first available date. You may also go to your local drugstore and purchase temporary dental cement and encasing your tooth with it to prevent bacteria from getting down into the tooth and damaging the pulp. 

Care for a Broken Tooth

If you have a chipped tooth that is not painful, you still need to get dental care as soon as possible so that you can correct the shape of your tooth and thus avoid future decay at the site of the break. If you have a tooth that is broken and bleeding, you can place a tea bag on the tooth and bite down to apply pressure, which will help stop the bleeding. In the case of a broken tooth, you will need a root canal as soon as possible to try to save the roots before they become infected. When your pulp is exposed, you cannot wait for the next available appointment. You must seek immediate care. 

Before you have tooth damage that you are trying to deal with, you should call your dentist and see if they leave room in their schedule to handle emergency cases or will accept emergency patients after hours on an on-call basis. If your dentist does not provide emergency care, ask for recommendations so that you can prepare against a dental emergency by programming the number of an emergency dentist into your phone. For more information, visit a website like https://www.drmaymi.com/