Blog Highlights:
- A chipped tooth can negatively impact your physical appearance
- A dentist can bond the chipped-of too back into place or use composite material to make the missing portion of your tooth
- Veneers can be custom made to help hide the chipped tooth
- You can also ask your dentist to put a crown over the chipped tooth to help hide and protect it
A chipped tooth can have a significant impact on your outward appearance. Unfortunately, it is a negative one.
Remember Jim Carrey in “Dumb and Dumber”? There are a lot of movies where actors play characters with a chipped tooth in order to create a funny or comedic persona. Believe it or not, this is not something that you would like to have in real life.
Fixing a Chipped tooth improves oral health and aesthetics
Fortunately, with the help of modern techniques and recent technology, it is now very easy to repair this kind of dental problem. Depending on whether or not you were able to keep the part of the tooth that chipped-off, your dentist can now use a wide variety of treatments.
Seeing your dentist as soon as possible is very important not just for your physical appearance but also for your oral health. This is because if the pulp found at the center of the tooth has been exposed, you could experience severe discomfort. An exposed pulp can make a tooth hypersensitive to pressure and to temperature changes. This can cause intense pain. The pulp could also become infected, requiring you to undergo more expensive, and complicated treatments.
Bonding the Chipped tooth
This procedure is known as dental cosmetic bonding. This is the cheapest, and fastest way for you to repair your chipped tooth. Actually, Jim Carrey did the opposite of this procedure. He made the dentist “unbond” his chipped tooth just for the movie. Bonding is done by using a composite filling material that the dentist will shape and color in order to match the appearance of the missing part of the tooth.
The dentist can also use the chipped-off tooth for this procedure. The dentist can bond it to its original place. Depending on how much of the tooth was lost, or if the chipped-off portion is intact, the dentist can use bonding material to make your teeth look brand new.
Using veneers to hide the chipped tooth
Veneers can be used to hide a chipped tooth for as long as only a small area has been damaged. This thin material is custom-made and it can be placed on the surface of the chipped tooth so that it can have a better appearance. A small portion of the surface of the tooth may be removed so that the veneer will properly fit and so that it will be flush with the other teeth.
Cover the tooth with a crown
Ideal for a chipped tooth that is missing a large portion, a crown will fully encase the visible portion of what remains of the tooth. The crown is shaped and sized specifically to match the original. You can choose to buy one that is made from ceramic or from porcelain which is fused to metal. The materials will be matched specifically to the color of your other teeth so that it will look natural. Like the veneer, some of the tooth surface will be removed to allow the crown to fit properly over it.
Preventing chipped tooth
The most common cause for a chipped tooth is blunt force trauma as a result of an accident. To help prevent this from happening, you need to wear a bite guard especially when you participate in contact sports. You should avoid clenching or grinding your teeth. You should also avoid using your teeth to open different things and you should not try to bite or chew on hard candies or ice.
