We had a visit from a patient who had been in an accident. His top front tooth had completely come out and he also fractured the adjacent tooth horizontally in half. Having been to A&E to have stitches placed in his lip and a head scan he attended at Time Dental with the facial swelling now greatly reduced. He was clearly upset as they were his front teeth and his partner used to say that his smile was one of his best features. He was also in a job which was customer facing and so he was obviously very aware.
Options for replacing missing teeth would be a removable denture, a fixed bridge or a dental implant. In this particular case the denture as a long term solution was not something he wanted. We discussed the option of having a dental bridge which uses teeth on either side for support. This would mean preparing otherwise sound teeth. Although this is a perfectly reasonable option, the best treatment would be to replace the tooth with a dental implant.
A dental implant is like a titanium root which is inserted into the jaw bone. The dental implant then holds an abutment which a crown then sits onto. The advantages of dental implants are that they replace teeth that are missing therefore preparing of adjacent teeth is not required; dental implants have 98% success rates; they are now routinely placed at Time Dental; there is a very quick recovery time with minimal discomfort after the implant is placed.
His other tooth which had been fractured horizontally in half would require root canal therapy, a post and then a crown.
In order to help him immediately the plan was to build up his broken tooth with composite bonding and provide him with a temporary denture for his missing tooth. This meant that in the short term he could still meet his clients at work with a smile while we were able to deal with the broken and missing tooth for the long term.
