Even if you or your child doesn’t play hockey, there’s still a chance that somebody in your family will have a tooth broken or knocked out. Sports do cause a lot of toothless smiles, but so do car accidents, falls, fights, and even biting on hard food. What a lot of people don’t realize (probably in part to the shock of losing a tooth) is that your dentist can save it if you can get yourself and your tooth to your Colorado Springs dentist quickly.
If a tooth gets knocked out, handle it only by the crown, or chewing edge. Try not to touch the root. If you can put it back in the socket and bite on some gauze or a wet tea bag, this is best. Be careful not to swallow the tooth accidentally. If you cannot replace the tooth in the socket, put it in a small container and cover it with whole milk or saliva. You can also carry the tooth between the lower lip and lower gum or under the tongue. Applying a cold compress or ice bag to the mouth and gums can reduce the pain. Use gauze to apply pressure to the wound to control the bleeding and get dental help as soon as possible. The faster you do, the greater the chance for your dentist to successfully reimplant the tooth.
You might want to add a tooth-saving storage device (most include a travel case and some fluid) to your first-aid kit. You can get one from your dentist.
There are three things you do NOT want to do with a knocked out (or avulsed) tooth:
- Do NOT handle it by the root — handle only the chewing edge or crown.
- Do NOT scrape the root of the tooth to remove any dirt or foreign objects.
- Do NOT brush or clean the tooth with alcohol or peroxide, regardless of where it landed.
- Class 1 includes chips or fractures in the outer enamel layer only.
- Class 2 features fractures into the dentin layer of the tooth.
- Class 3 is denoted by fractures into the pulp of the tooth.
- Class 4 involves fractures onto the root, often vertical fractures in the tooth.
