Dental Trauma

Hi there this is Dr Paul and thanks for tuning in to this video from Waterfront Dentistry by Paul’s.

Today I'd like to talk to you about dental trauma. The reason why I think this is going to be an important video is because I want this to be easily accessible to anyone and everyone visiting this website in case a dental emergency has occurred.

Let's talk about the first case where the tooth has completely come off the jaw bone and is either lying in the palm of your hand or on the floor somewhere. The first thing to do is do not panic, pick up the tooth clean it up with distilled water or saliva or even milk. If you do not have any of these and only have tap water available, go ahead and use the tap water very quickly and once you have done washing away the debris or dirt, use either saliva or milk to soak or rinse away the tap water. Once you have done that, put the tooth back into the socket of where you lost the tooth. If you are not very confident about orienting the tooth back into the socket (which means you are not sure which way the tooth faces), don't put the tooth back into the socket. Bring it to the dentist or to someone that knows what to do, carrying the tooth in a bowl of milk or saliva so that he or she can orient the tooth back into the socket. The very important reason why you don't want to put it in the socket is because if you put it in the socket without knowing which end is up the tooth will fuse the wrong way and you will need to get a root canal to change the morphology of the way it looks. Now if you end up with a situation where the tooth is out then within 20 minutes the tooth needs to be transported by milk or saliva to the dentist. If you don't have a bowl or if you don't have a cup to put the saliva in, you can ask the person who has lost the tooth to lift his or her tongue and bring in the tooth that way. That is the most important and most severe dental trauma.

The second dental truman where the tooth is affected by force causing the tooth to be wiggly but still is in the socket. In such a situation just make sure you do not keep wiggling the tooth with your lip or your tongue and you use your fingers to put the tooth back into place and keep it there. Go to the dentist office as soon as possible and the dentist will try to splint the tooth back unto the proper area and use your other teeth as a support or guide. This is the second type of dental trauma.

The third type of dental trauma is when you have a hard concussion on a tooth and the tooth feels very very numb but that’s pretty much it. That's to say, it's not loose or going to come out but just feels traumatized. In such a situation just make sure not to re-traumatized the same tooth and get to your dentist as soon as possible and let him or her know that you have had a pretty bad dental concussion. The dentist will run a couple of tests and will keep following up on the tooth to periodically check to see if this tooth is becoming discoloured over the course of time, which basically means that there is bleeding within the canals or within the blood vessels of the tooth and the dentist has to figure out if the tooth is still alive over a certain period of time.

Now what usually happens with a dental accident or dental trauma is there is so much bleeding and pain involved that sometimes it’s difficult to remember the right things to do or the right steps to take. The most important things to do is to make sure you are not in a dangerous location or spot where more dental trauma or further bodily injury or harm can occur. Make sure you transport yourself or this person away from that site. Once this has happened focus on the fact that the tooth needs to be saved either by saving it in saliva or in milk or even in the socket and head to the dentist.

The most important thing to understand or remember with dental trauma: the effects of dental trauma can usually come after years and years. What that means is once the tooth has come back to it's socket and it's not mobile anymore that doesn't meant to say the tooth will never have a problem in the future. A lot of time there might be different things that happen to this tooth. There might be something call an absorption where the root of the tooth has been damaged. There might be something call ankylosis where the tooth is fused to the bone. So basically there's no way the tooth can move and even if you need to pull the tooth for any kind of extraction reason or infection it will be very tough to do so. There might be situations where the tooth ends up being discoloured but still stays vital or still stays alive.

I hope this video has answered a couple of your questions regarding what to do during dental trauma. If you are ever are in a situation like this, contact us at our office at 613-966-1225 and if we are not available please leave us a message and we will try and get back to you as soon as possible.