Help! I Accidentally Cracked My Dental Crown!

The average adult over twenty has six damaged, decayed or missing teeth. So many adults have several crowns. Much like your natural teeth, dental crowns are incredibly strong. However, they are not indestructible. That’s especially true if you grind your teeth or practice similar habits.

Cracked dental crowns hardly ever expose the pulp or the more sensitive parts of the tooth. So, you have a day or two to get to the dentist. After that, bacterial begins to accumulate in the broken tooth, and that can cause serious problems later. However, if the discomfort is so bad that it interferes with your ability to eat, work, or sleep, it’s best to see your dentist straightaway.

Immediate Attention for a Cracked Dental Crown

These incidents are pretty much inevitable, mostly due to trauma injuries, like hitting your mouth on a door or biting into something hard. When you sustain a cracked dental crown:

• Inspect the area, because the damage may be worse, or not as bad, as you think,
• Decide if you can deal with the jagged edge for a few days (this choice is obviously a personal one), and
• Purchase a mild over-the-counter topical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication (NSAID) like Orajel or Anbesol.

If your tooth trauma is serious, skip these steps and see your dentist immediately.

Long-Term Solutions

If the damage is slight enough, which is sometimes the case, Dr. Stone can usually repair the crack without much of a problem. There’s usually no need to take out the crown and work on it outside your mouth. On a similar note, sometimes the crack occurred on the tooth itself instead of the crown. In these instances, a quick repair job is almost always the best solution.

Overall, a replacement crown is usually the best option in these cases. Since the crown is already off, the process should be relatively fast.

In a few cases, a more radical procedure may be required. If the crown broke and there is a good chance that it could break again, a replacement crown would then just be a stopgap. Dr. Stone will be glad to talk to you about other solutions like dental implants that might work better for you.

Cracked dental crowns happen and we see many of these cases, and use proven methods to deal with them. If you need help, contact Dr. John Stone at Best Dental Associates in Fort Lauderdale.