Cracked and Damaged Teeth

Cracked Teeth
Chipped Teeth
Erosions
Broken Teeth
Defective and Unsightly Fillings

Cracked Teeth

Traumatic tooth fractures are obvious because of missing tooth fragments. The involved teeth are often sensitive to temperature or painful depending on the extent of destruction and nerve exposure.

The choice of treatment of teeth with dislodged fragments depends on the location of the fracture as well as the condition of the dislodged fragments. If the fracture is clean and the fragments complete, they can be repositioned and bonded directly to the damaged tooth. Materials and techniques are the same as for the bonding of veneers and crowns. If the dislodged fragment is lost, all-ceramic veneers, onlays, or crowns are used to restore the damaged tooth.

Dental fractures are not always obvious. Teeth may have stress fractures that are caused by chronic trauma (not just one strong blow). These fractures are more insiduous in their development. They usually go through stages and tend to display increasingly aggrevating symptoms, which go hand in hand with an increasing depth of the crack (like the crack on a wind-shield).

At the beginning the patient can usually recall an episode of acute discomfort while chewing, after which the tooth never felt quite right again. Many patients develop a protective reflex and avoid using the tooth. They become one-sided chewers and may go for many years before they are forced to seek help for their problem. Others find it impossible to avoid discomfort and seek help immediately. Often it is difficult to localize the discomfort and to pin-point the tooth.

If a cracked tooth is diagnosed, immediate treatment helps avoid further damage. The treatment is simple: bonded partial or full-coverage crowns.

Chipped Teeth

Chipped teeth are commonly caused by grinders who slide their front teeth in edge-to-edge position in different directions. After many years of attrition, the thinned edges of the teeth start to chip.

This patient had partially flattened incisal edges of her front teeth. Due to pre-exisiting fillings the mesial corners of the central incisors chipped away. The patient received a night guard and 8 Empress veneers.

Erosions

Erosions are caused by acids from fruit or the stomach, which dissolve due to regular contact the enamel the teeth.

This patient had chronic acid reflux from her stomach for many years. Her teeth were dissolved from the inside. She received 6 full-coverage Empress restorations to protect her teeth from future acid exposure.

Defective Fillings

Often we find people with large and defective fillings that do not protect the teeth against decay anymore. They are usually undermined by a significant amount of decay. These patients are prime candidates for porcelain restorations.

Broken Teeth

This patient fell 10 days before he had to leave the country for several years. The fracture exposed the nerve of his upper right lateral incisor. He needed a root-canal treatment and a cosmetic fiber-glass post to avoid any background shadow of his porcelain crown.

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