What is trauma? Do you know enough about this dental term or not? Trauma is one of the common problems for visiting a dentist, which includes physical damage to the teeth, gums, bone that holds the dental cavities, lips and mouth. Various problems include dental trauma; Such as a cut tooth, broken tooth, broken jaw, loose tooth, pulled out tooth, stuck tooth in the socket, torn lip, torn gum that causes breaking, loosening or loss of teeth. Most of the time, this complication occurs as a severe event, which is more common among children aged 6 to 12 years.
Besides knowing what trauma is? Knowing how to treat it is also very important. Trauma treatment is performed with the aim of restoring and preserving the tooth, like other dental procedures such as tooth filling, so that the structure and function of the tooth does not suffer. Various reasons cause the formation of trauma. But most of the time, dental injuries are the result of accidents, falls, hitting equipment while exercising. Also, sometimes these things happen due to being involved in violent incidents such as fights and physical abuse.
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Sometimes dental trauma happens due to the person’s own ignorance. Knowing the common ignorance helps to prevent unwanted injuries well:
A blow to the tooth can cause various damages to the tooth, among which the most common dental trauma injuries include the following:
It is very likely that the tooth will move after the impact, which may be associated with protrusion or depression. After encountering this problem in the first step, return the tooth to its original position with a gentle and slow movement and place a piece of gauze on it; Without putting pressure on the tooth, then visit the dentist.
Sometimes the impact is so severe that you end up breaking a tooth. If you encounter a fracture, take the broken part with you and see a dentist immediately. A professional and experienced dentist in the field of dental trauma can easily use the broken part with the help of restorative materials to repair your tooth.
Sometimes the impact causes the tooth to loosen very slightly or severely. If you feel that there is no need to close it, just go to the dentist for a check-up and use soft foods and observe oral hygiene for a while. However, if there is severe laxity, the dentist will close the damaged tooth to an adjacent tooth so that during the treatment, reconstruction and repair process, the tooth will regain its original strength.
Tooth extraction from the cavity occurs when the impact is very strong and sudden. Most of the time, this problem occurs during an accident and such cases. If you encounter it, you should first control your excitement and grab the tooth from the crown area and do not touch the root of the tooth at all. Rinsing the mouth with mild water helps to remove the contents of the mouth, while being careful not to swallow the broken tooth.
Fortunately, most incidents for children can be easily treated with a little antibacterial ointment, rest and cuddles. But the trauma resulting from a strong impact such as falling causes serious damage to the teeth. Children’s milk teeth are formed in the game and when the child starts to walk, and permanent teeth appear in the mouth after the age of six, which can cause serious and costly damage. Such as broken teeth, broken roots, loosening, knocking and displacement of teeth, breaking the bone around the tooth, etc. For the treatment of each of these problems, there are different solutions that are determined according to the difficulty of the work and the length of the treatment may be different.
Since children do not have enough experience to cope with such problems and dental injuries, parents are obliged to do their best during the treatment and use their experiences. One of the most important and effective measures is the feeling of peace in the child and unconditional love. Because children need to feel safe so that they can spend this period and not have any stress due to physical injuries including trauma.
Most often, the result of dental trauma is broken teeth. This problem can occur in different severities and its treatment depends on the type of location and the severity of the damage. Regardless of the extent of the injury, you need a technical examination by a dentist or an endodontist for treatment, as sometimes the adjacent teeth suffer insignificant damage that can only be detected by a complete examination of the teeth. Usually, to treat this condition, dental inlays or dental onlays are performed to solve the problem of cracks or fractures.
Dentists who specialize in the treatment of traumatic dental injuries save damaged teeth by relying on advanced skills and techniques and technologies. If you encounter a cracked or injured tooth, see an orthodontist. Because this category of dental specialists has great flexibility in accepting emergency cases and will easily relieve the pain of trauma and most likely save the tooth. So the sooner you act, the better.
Various factors affect dental trauma, and most of the time, to compensate for a cracked or broken tooth, it is necessary to use a filling of the same color as the tooth, as well as to perform the necessary dental inlay or dental onlay procedures. But sometimes, due to the significant loss of the crown of the tooth, a crown and a cap are placed instead, and if the pulp is seen, the possibility of needing a root canal is very high. Injuries to the back teeth, including fractures, often require a root canal, and more serious injuries, such as a tooth gap, require the complete removal of the tooth, and the lost teeth are restored by the dentist, which is very important during root canal treatment.
If you go to the dentist quickly, the possibility of tooth restoration is very high. Be careful, take the missing tooth carefully by the crown and never touch its root. The dentist will put the tooth back in its socket and place a stabilizing splint on it to allow the root to heal more quickly.
Based on the observations, trauma occurs in the upper jaw much more often than in the lower jaw, and the majority of injuries are related to the middle incisors of the upper jaw. Also, the second tooth that is associated with a lot of damage is the maxillary lateral. While the probability of damage to canine teeth is very low, and these teeth need to be de-nerved or filled. Sometimes the front maxillary teeth are also damaged. However, the maxillary central tooth and then the maxillary lateral teeth are among the most damaged teeth in the studies.
It is interesting to know that among the statistics of fractures, the crown accounts for about 4% of all teeth.
Protruding teeth should be treated by a dentist within one to two hours. Therefore, if you encounter this problem, contact a specialist doctor and visit the dentist’s office. The dentist will try to enter the structure or glue the broken pieces in place, but if the nerve is also damaged, root canal treatment will be needed to save the tooth.
Because dental trauma injuries happen when you don’t expect it and any person may face this problem. If you know what to do after that, it will be in your best interest and you will help save the teeth a lot.
You need to act fast for a broken or dislodged tooth. The first tip is to not touch the root at all. Because the microscopic fibers that help to reattach the tooth are damaged. The second way is to clean your mouth from any contamination and put the tooth in its place. But avoid any pressure on the tooth and the damaged area.
Tooth decay can happen at any age. Tooth trauma resulting from sudden events often involves the front teeth, and the way you act between the incident and going to the dentist has a great impact on the treatment. The possibility of their breaking is very high, and when it happens, it may be accompanied by bleeding of the gum tissue and the feeling of heat, the displacement of the teeth. It is recommended that the patient see a dentist as soon as possible. Visiting in the early hours brings the best treatment results. After the treatment, the patient should use soft foods for two weeks and observe oral and dental hygiene. It is highly recommended to use a soft toothbrush and mouthwash
However, in case of fracture of the dental implant or orthodontics, the method of removing and treating it is almost simple and safe and depends on various conditions such as the position of the implant and the extent of its fusion with the jaw bone. In some cases, there will be no solution except to remove it by a surgeon.
The best time for dental trauma to occur is when the child is just starting to walk, at the age of 1-2 years, the possibility of falling down and causing serious damage to the teeth is very high. But after that, at the age of 8 to 12, this happens because of the lively nature of children.
Examination after dental trauma in children
When visiting a dentist for the treatment of children’s trauma, the time and location of the injury should be determined well, and the extent of damage to other parts of the tooth should be examined. When children’s front teeth suffer from trauma, if the tooth is permanent, the possibility that the consequences will be with the child in the long term is very high.
Necessary measures after dental trauma in children have two stages; Extra-oral examination and intra-oral examination. External examination includes life-threatening injuries, neurological injuries, cervical vertebrae, skull fractures, etc. While intra-oral examinations include examination of milk teeth, permanent teeth, mouth washing, examination of the affected area in terms of swelling, the amount of sensitivity to touch, the number of affected teeth, mobile bone parts, and the amount of limitation in opening the mouth.
Radiography after dental trauma is one of the quick procedures after tooth trauma, which is done in order to check the extent of tooth fracture. Also, knowing things such as the dimensions of the canal members, the degree of closure of the end of the root canal and the degree of fracture and how close the fracture is to the pulse, or whether the root is fractured or not, depends on the way of repair, which can only be detected by radiography.