What to Do About a Cracked Tooth
Breaking a tooth can happen at the most inopportune time. When teeth break they can cause pain. Sometimes its just a chipped tooth which could feel rough to the tongue but isn’t particularly painful. Other times, you may bite down hard on something and crack a tooth.
Cracked tooth syndrome is when a tooth looks visibly intact but becomes painful to chewing and sometimes the pain in unprovoked. This happens because the crack travels through the tooth and close to the nerve. Every time you bite down into something, the crack spreads transferring pain to the nerve of the tooth.
Root Canal Teeth are at Risk of Cracking
Often, a cracked tooth occurs on teeth that have been treated with root canals. When a nerve is removed from a tooth, the tooth becomes very dry and brittle. This makes root canal teeth at a high risk of cracking over time. Your dentist will usually recommend placing a crown on the tooth after a root canal to prevent the tooth from fracturing.
There are, however, rare times when a root canal tooth that was already treated with a crown also cracks. This is highly unlikely but can happen if the person has habits like chewing ice or inadvertently bit into something hard. This would cause pressure to travel through the crown to the root of the tooth and cause a crack. A cracked tooth that has been treated with a root canal almost always requires extraction and tooth replacement.
Cracked Tooth Repair
A simple repair of a cracked tooth would require only a bonding. A cracked tooth filling is just a filling that is placed to repair the chipped tooth. If the crack is bigger or seen extending through the center of the tooth, the better treatment would be a crown. A crown will cover the whole tooth and prevent the tooth from cracking further. Sometimes, when there is cracked tooth pain, the indicated treatment would be a root canal. A root canal will remove the nerve from the tooth and eliminate the pain immediately.
A Dental Implant Helps Replace a Cracked Tooth
When the crack extends down the long axis of the tooth (down the length of the root), then the tooth is hopeless. There is no way to repair or restore a vertical fracture that extends below the gum line. When the diagnosis is a vertical root fracture, the recommended treatment is extraction and implant placement. Implants are excellent choices to restore missing teeth because they not only replace the missing tooth, they also maintain the bone level of the tooth that was removed.
If you are looking to treat a cracked tooth in Miami, call Dr. Julio Hernandez at Biscayne Dental & Facial Aesthetics. With over two decades of experience, Dr. Julio and his highly experienced staff are well suited to help treat your condition. Whether you need a dental crown or an implant, we are here to help you. We offer convenient hours Monday through Friday at our Edgewater Miami location. Please call (305) 224-1138 to schedule your appointment.