When Bad Things Happen To Good Teeth
At Community Dental Group, we attend to all types of oral health needs for clients in the Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, and Newbury Park, CA, region. While this does frequently include regular checkups, fittings for braces or mouth guards, and also root canals and fillings, our interactions can also be more of an emergency nature.
Tooth loss can truly affect anyone, and this can feel like even more of a crisis when the situation is precipitated by an accident. While it is common to see loss of dentition due to age, genetics, and poor oral health routines, accidental damage or removal of teeth can still happen to people who do take care of their dental hygiene.
The Time For Action
One of the biggest issues with the traumatic loss of dentition is that if it is not addressed both immediately and appropriately, it can lead to greater complications. This is often the case if the tooth has broken off above the gum line, leaving the exposed root in the mouth. The result is that bacteria can quickly infiltrate and lead to a systemic infection, as well as pain in the immediate area of the mouth.
Another issue that many people face is if the tooth does come completely out of the jaw bone. In some cases, pain is not as widely experienced, since these is no exposed nerve in the mouth. However, the open socket where the tooth had once been anchored is now a depository for debris and bacteria, and this can lead to infections in the jaw bone, sinuses, and gums.
For this reason, we always recommend that clients seek immediate attention for the full or partial loss of a tooth, as well as for indications of teeth that might be loosening. In all of these cases, the use of a dental implant can not only correct the loss, but can also reduce the possibility of long term complications.