It’s surprisingly easy to end up with a chipped tooth. Despite tooth enamel being one of the toughest substances in your body, all it takes for a tooth to chip is to bite down on something such as a nut which is unexpectedly hard.
A chipped tooth is a common occurrence, but a lot of people don’t realise that not fixing a chipped tooth can lead to further damage, infection, and in the worst-case scenario – tooth loss. For this reason, it’s important to make an appointment with your dentist and get the tooth fixed as soon as you can.
Before discussing what you should do if you have a chipped tooth, let’s start by describing what it is and how to know if you have one.
What is a chipped tooth?
We refer to a chipped tooth when part of the tooth enamel has broken or chipped off. Although tooth enamel is extremely hard, it can only handle so much pressure. One of the main reasons a tooth chips easily is that it has already been impacted by tooth decay or a cavity.
So, how do you know that you have a chipped tooth?
In most cases, it doesn’t take much to figure out that you have a chipped tooth. If it happens when you’re biting into something hard, not only do you feel it break off but also you can feel the broken part in your mouth.
This isn’t always the case, however, and sometimes you may swallow a bit of tooth that has chipped off, along with your food; particularly if the chip is relatively minor and out of view at the back of your mouth – and so it goes unnoticed.
Symptoms of a chipped tooth
Below, we’ve listed some of the symptoms to help identify that you have a chipped tooth:
- Part of your tooth feels uneven and rough when you run your tongue over it
- The gum surrounding an area of the chipped tooth is irritated
- You experience pain when you bite down with a chipped tooth
These symptoms serve as an indicator and you should always visit your dentist to verify that you do indeed have a chipped tooth.
How to care for your chipped tooth initially
A chipped tooth can cause blood loss, severe pain, nerve damage and more besides, which is why it’s important to take care of the chipped tooth and your mouth as a whole.
Your top priority should always be to visit your dentist but if you can’t get to see him or her because it’s late at night or it’s a Sunday afternoon, then here are a few things you can do meanwhile.
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Rinse your mouth with warm salt water
Rinsing your mouth with warm saltwater will wash away any blood, soothing the affected area and helping to relieve any pain.
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Use clean gauze
If your chipped tooth is serious and is causing bleeding, then use a piece of clean gauze to apply pressure to the affected area to stem the blood flow.
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Apply cold compresses
You can also keep down any swelling by applying cold compresses to the outside of the affected area every few minutes.
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Take pain relievers
If you’re suffering pain from your chipped tooth then we recommend taking mild over-the-counter painkillers such as Panadol and Nurofen but take care not to exceed the recommended dose.
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Monitor your condition
Monitor your condition and if the pain persists or gets worse, then contact an emergency dentist that provides an out of hours service.
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Eat gently
A chipped tooth is more likely to be painful and break when under pressure, therefore it’s best to eat on the other side of your mouth and stick to soft foods that don’t require a lot of chewing or munching.
While we don’t as a rule recommend home fixes, there are a couple of things you can do to prevent any sharp or jagged edges from a chipped tooth causing a cut in your tongue, lips or cheeks.
To prevent this from happening, you can cover the affected tooth with a piece of sugarless gum or paraffin wax.
Or, if your dental appointment is more than 24 hours away, then another temporary solution is to use dental cement (which you can get from most chemists) to cover the affected tooth. Be sure to follow the instructions and visit your dentist as soon as you can.
We’ve discussed what you can do while you’re waiting to visit a dentist, but there may be some of you that are wondering whether you can just leave nature to take over and heal it like it can other parts of our body.
Can a chipped tooth heal itself?
The answer to this is that it all depends. If damage to a tooth is minimal then it is possible for it to repair itself. For instance, a tooth with a crack on the outside and a minimal fracture line that isn’t causing any pain, may over time repair itself. The saliva in our mouths can help to rebuild enamel on a cracked tooth in a process known as remineralisation, to make it strong and protective once more.
How to fix a chipped tooth? – the options
Treatment depends on the severity of the damage. If it’s just a small piece of enamel that’s broken off, we can usually carry out the repair in just one dental appointment. A badly damaged tooth may require more lengthy and costlier procedures.
Some of the ways our dentists may repair or treat your chipped tooth are:
- Bonding – usually for a front tooth where a chip is visible
- Filling – when only a small piece of enamel has broken off
- Crown – for a severely chipped tooth
- Dental veneers – to cover the whole of the front tooth surface
- Root canal therapy – used as a last resort for fixing badly cracked or chipped teeth
If you think you may have chipped your tooth then get in touch with the caring friendly dentists at No Gaps Dental. Thanks to the choice of 15 dental clinics and many dental advancements, we have plenty of options to fix your chipped tooth and restore your smile.