When a tooth is damaged in Ajax, seeing a dentist promptly is essential. Ensuring the damaged tooth is repaired or replaced will help protect your oral health. However, determining whether it’s better to repair a damaged tooth or extract it and replace it can be a more complex decision.
Why Do Teeth Become Damaged?
There are several reasons why teeth can become damaged, such as taking a blow to the mouth, a sporting injury, or where a tooth has a cavity that hasn’t been filled. A tooth can become damaged if you bite down hard on hard or very crunchy food. Yet another reason is tooth grinding and clenching, a condition called bruxism in Whitby, which can wear teeth down and result in them becoming cracked and damaged.
Repairing a tooth is important because any breach in the tooth enamel that normally protects your tooth will allow harmful bacteria to enter the tooth, where they can cause infection and decay. Even a small crack in a tooth can open when you bite down, letting in these bacteria.
When you visit Durham Dental Solutions, our dentist in Pickering can gently assess the damaged tooth and identify possible treatments to restore it.
Treatments That Can Repair Damage to a Tooth
Several techniques can repair damage to a tooth. If the damage is quite minor, it could be mended with a filling. We can use a tooth-coloured composite resin that bonds strongly to your tooth and is colour matched, so it blends in beautifully. Sometimes small cracks or chips in teeth can be masked with a porcelain veneer that fits over the front surface of a tooth. More extensive damage may require a dental crown in Oshawa. A crown covers the entire tooth, so none of the natural structure is visible, and it is ideal when damage is more substantial. If the dental pulp is infected or inflamed, root canal therapy removes these tissues and gets rid of the infection so that the tooth can be fully restored with a dental crown.
What if a Tooth Cannot be Restored?
Whenever possible, we will always try to save a damaged tooth instead of removing it, but unfortunately, some teeth are too badly damaged and cannot be successfully restored. Other times, a tooth can be severely infected, and while root canal therapy in Newcastle may be able to save it, there is an element of risk in choosing this option. If we feel the potential risks are high and that there is a good chance of root canal therapy being less successful, we may recommend removing the tooth and spending the money instead on a suitable replacement. When this is the case, we will always discuss possible treatment choices fully, ensuring you know the potential risks and benefits. If it isn’t possible to save the tooth or its future is uncertain, even with the help of further restorative treatments, we might suggest replacing it with a dental implant in Clarington.
Why Choose Dental Implants?
Dental implants replace missing teeth artificially and offer several advantages compared with other tooth replacement options. An implant consists of a screw-like post inserted into the jawbone, where it soon becomes fused in place. The implant helps protect the jawbone, preventing the bone loss that naturally occurs after teeth are removed. The implant forms a strong anchorage point to hold a replacement tooth successfully. Dental implant teeth in Courtice can look amazing as we carefully design each restoration to look and feel as close to a natural tooth as possible. With the right after-care dental implants can last for many years problem-free or potentially for life.
