People who have been in sports accidents or other types of accidents often have problems with their teeth. It can cause damage to the teeth and jaws in a number of ways. Traumatic injuries can cause a number of problems with teeth, such as cracks in the enamel, broken roots, discolored teeth, and pulp necrosis. All of these might need to be treated.
Traumatic injuries are those that are caused by blunt or penetrating forces (such as falls, road traffic accidents, assaults, burns). They can cause severe systemic shock that needs to be treated right away by a doctor. Some injuries can be fixed at home with a good first-aid kit, but others need to be taken to the emergency room and stitched. A triage classification system looks at how bad an injury is and puts patients in order of their needs.
The longer it takes to heal, the worse your injury was. It's also more likely that you'll have problems, like pulp necrosis, which is a painful dental disease that can be hard to treat. This is why it's important to see a dentist as soon as possible after a concussion to find out what's wrong.
After an accident, the hard tissues of the tooth root (like the dentin and cementum) and the soft tissues (like the dental pulp) can be hurt in different ways. Some of these injuries can be complicated and need help and treatment right away. Root fractures are these kinds of injuries, and they can happen anywhere on the tooth's root, such as in the apical third, the middle third, or the coronal third, just below the crown. How the break is treated depends on where it is.
A broken tooth that hasn't moved in any direction should be held together for one week with a composite material. When the splint is taken off and again 3 months later, tests should be done on the pulp. If a pulp test doesn't show any response, you may need root canal therapy.
There are many things that can cause teeth to change color. Extrinsic stains come from foods and drinks that have strong colors that stain teeth, like coffee, tea, wine, and dark sodas. Intrinsic stains are caused by medical conditions like celiac disease or rickets, as well as some illnesses that affect how a child's enamel develops (under the age of 8). Internal tooth discoloration can also be caused by tooth damage, especially when the child is young.
The medicines your mom took during the second half of her pregnancy can also make the insides of her teeth look different. Antibiotics like tetracycline can be absorbed by the body and leave teeth with a brown-black stain. When the blood vessels and dentinal tubules in a damaged tooth break down, the color of the tooth can change. Depending on how badly the tooth was hurt, it may die or it may need to be treated. This is why it's important to get dental care right away after a head injury.
If the tooth is not protected right away after a traumatic dental injury (TDI), pulpal necrosis can happen. This is caused by bacteria getting into the pulpal tissue that is exposed or by inflammation. Pulp necrosis can be less likely to happen if a revascularization procedure like a root canal obliteration (PCO) or a pulpectomy is done.
The outcome of a tooth with pulpal involvement depends on whether or not there are other injuries at the same time, how long it has been since the tooth was exposed and treated, if there is a bacterial infection, and what stage the root is in. The goal of treatment is to keep the pulp healthy and restore its appearance and function.