Chipping or cracking a tooth accounts for the majority of dental injuries we see in our office. However the injury occurred, don’t worry, your smile and your teeth can be repaired. But it’s important to fix a chipped or broken tooth as soon as it occurs to ensure it doesn’t cause additional problems and increase costs down the road.

So, What Are Your Options for Fixing a Broken Tooth in Poway CA?

The right restorative dental treatment for your situation will depend on how severely your tooth or teeth are damaged. But you do have several choices for getting back your tooth and confidence in your smile.

5 Different Types of Cracked Teeth

As a dentist, we categories broken teeth in these ways.

Craze Lines: These are small vertical cracks in your teeth that can be caused by things like chewing on ice or even an imbalanced bite. Craze lines are technically tiny cracks in your teeth, but they are not a major cause for concern.

Fractured Cusp: When a portion of a tooth’s chewing surface breaks off, usually around a filling, it’s known as a fractured cusp. It typically doesn’t cause much pain and rarely damages the pulp.

Cracked Tooth: When a crack stretches from the chewing surface vertically toward the root, we refer to this as a cracked tooth. If left untreated it usually results in tooth loss.

Split Tooth: A split tooth is what happens if you leave a cracked tooth untreated. Like a cracked tooth there is a crack, but it is split into two pieces by a crack that runs through the tooth.

Vertical Root Fracture: This type of fracture is the worse case scenario and occurs when a tooth breaks straight down the root. Often it splits down the middle just like a piece of firewood.

Now that you know a little more about what types of cracks exist in the world of dentistry, lets discuss how best to treat these painful situations.

Tooth Bonding: For smaller chips, we use tooth bonding to improve the cosmetic appearance and protect a chipped tooth. Bonding is a tooth-colored resin material that is applied and sculpted over the healthy area of the tooth to rebuild the tooth where the tooth was chipped.

Veneers: If your chipped tooth is more cosmetically serious in nature and you want a restoration that can last for decades, then a dental veneer is the perfect solution. Veneers are essentially thin porcelain covers on the front of your teeth and produce a very appealing, natural look.

Crowns: If you have a badly chipped or cracked tooth or residual pain associated with eating or drinking, a crown may be the best option. The big difference between crowns and veneers is that a crown covers the entire tooth, while a veneer only covers the front part.

Root Canals: In situations where you have a crack in your tooth that extends into the pulp, root canal therapy is the best treatment option. It is an excellent way to relieve pain from an infected or inflamed tooth caused by a crack or chip in the tooth.

Dental Implants: If you have a tooth that has cracked just before or below the surface of the gum line, you will need to have the tooth removed and replaced with a dental implant. Of course, we could also do a bridge after extracting the tooth, but that will compromise the surrounding healthy teeth, so a dental implant is usually a much better option.

To possibly save your tooth, avoid more damage and potential infection, it’s important to see your dentist right away. If you have a chipped or broken tooth in Poway CA, call our office right away. If you have been putting it off, call our office today to schedule an appointment.