Dental Trauma: Its Symptoms & Treatments
Acute dental trauma is a severe injury to one or different parts of your mouth. The injury might include damage to your teeth, root, or jaw. In addition, you might injure soft tissues like your tongue, cheeks, gums, or lips. In addition, acute dental trauma can expose the soft center of your tooth, the dental pulp, to infections.
What Is the Most Common Dental Trauma?
Chipped, loose, cracked, out of place, or missing teeth count among the most common dental traumas affecting children. Children might also have rough edges on their teeth. Besides the above, children might incur injuries causing bleeding from the gums, lips, face, or mouth and have trouble moving their jaw. They might also experience changes in how their teeth fit after closing their mouth.
How Is Dental Trauma Treated?
The children’s dentist providing trauma management in Houston will examine the child’s mouth and inquire how they were injured. They will also ask about the symptoms. It would help if you told the provider whether your child had undergone surgeries or other processes on the mouth. Your child might need x-rays to check for damage to the face or bones in the face. The treatment provided depends on the kind of dental trauma your child has. For example, a tooth moving slightly might heal by itself. However, they might also need medication to alleviate pain and prevent infections, sutures to close wounds in the mouth, and surgery to repair teeth and broken bones in the jaw.
If your child has chipped or fractured teeth, the children’s dentist near Houston recommends a tooth-colored filling to restore the lost part of the tooth. If they have lost a significant portion of the tooth, the dentist might recommend an artificial crown or cap.
Pediatric dentists recommend root canals for children if the dental pulp is exposed due to the trauma. Root canals also become necessary if your child has injured the back teeth that may have fractured the cusps. Severe injuries causing a split tooth might require extraction.
Children below 12 might not need root canals because their teeth are in the developmental stages and generally heal themselves. However, the pediatric dentist in Houston, TX, monitors your child’s teeth carefully to determine whether additional treatments are necessary.
Knocked-out teeth are comfortably reattached if you reach the dentist quickly. However, you must see the pediatric dentist or a specialist within 30 minutes to help save the tooth. If you can find the child’s tooth handle it, carefully holding it by the Crown without touching the roots. The dentist will place the tooth into its socket with a stabilizing splint for a few weeks and might recommend root canals afterward. Unfortunately, if you cannot find your child’s tooth or delay getting treatment, the dentist might suggest other options to replace the tooth.
How To Manage Children’s Acute Dental Trauma?
Apply ice on a child’s cheeks for 15 minutes every hour using crushed ice in a malleable bag and covering it with a towel before the application. The ice pack helps prevent damage and alleviates swelling and pain. Advise your child not to chew with the damaged tooth to avoid putting too much pressure on it.
Give your child soft foods for liquids because they are comfortable to eat with dental trauma. Soft foods include ice cream, pudding, applesauce, et cetera.
Dental trauma shouldn’t encourage your child to stop cleaning their mouth. However, they must use a soft-bristled toothbrush brushing gently near the damaged tooth. In addition, dentists recommend using saltwater to rinse to help clean wounds.
Children can suffer dental trauma when playing or getting involved in altercations, damaging the teeth and mouth. If you wish to prevent dental trauma among children, you can inquire with the children’s dentist about custom-created mouthguards, which they provide after taking impressions of your child’s mouth. The safety devices help prevent trauma to the teeth, gums, and bones supporting the mouth.
When To Seek Immediate Treatment For Dental Trauma?
If your child suffers dental trauma, causing them to lose one or more teeth, or their teeth to move out of place, or have severe bleeding in the mouth that doesn’t subside after 10 minutes, you must call the trauma management center in Houston to seek prompt treatment for your child. Delaying the necessary treatment can give rise to severe complications in the child’s mouth, needing intensive therapies.
Greenway Pediatric Dentistry provides trauma management in Houston for children whenever they are affected by injuries to their teeth and mouth. Therefore, if your child returns home in the evening with severe damage to the mouth, kindly do not hesitate to contact this facility for prompt treatment.