8yr old dd has broken her front, adult tooth [sad]

[IsLovingAndGiving]

Dd bumped her front, adult tooth on the top of some drawers this morning. It broke instantly, almost completely in half (horizontally) .

We saw a dentist an hour after it happened and the tooth has been temporarily capped. The root has not been damaged, but we have been warned that the tooth could still die due to the trauma.

We now need to wait 2 weeks until her appointment to have it all numbed and repaired properly.

My main concerns are about whether the repaired tooth is likely to break repeatedly, aswell as what we can expect the dental procedures will be like for dd (she has never had any dental treatment before and is concerned about pain).

Would love to hear of your similar experiences.

Poor little love.

It wont be the end of the world (it just feels like it), the pain shouldn't be too bad. It will probably need to be replaced time and again , but when she is old enough she could always choose to have an implant.

Start putting some money aside specifically for it, so that she can get what she needs done, when it needs doing.

I'm a little bitter as I had a similar trauma as a younger child, then braces and both have ruined my teeth and caused me endless problems and bills - my parents (although generous in every other way) have never paid towards any of the treatment... baffles me slightly tbh.

Anyway, I hope that it isn't all too traumatic for her - it shouldn't be x

My eldest broke hers, at about the same age, actually, when she bumped it at swimming. It has needed numerous repairs, but as she's got older and stopped bashing it again, it's been ok.

I don't remember her being in pain from the treatment. I suppose it depends what you have done.

blimey, it must have been a hell of a bump

DS1 crashed into the underside of a tall metal slide (was sliding down the frame hanging on to his coat ) at about the same age. he knocked his front teeth out but his dentist was able to push them back in, & splinted them to the adjoining teeth

the knocked-out teeth survived for years with no pain, but had no sensitivity, & when he was around 18 the dentist decided to veneer them while he was still entitled to NHS treatment. (the teeth still looked ok despite lack of nerves)

He's 23 now, & has had no pain problems, but one of the veneers has partially broken off & needs redoing.

I think you have to be guided by your dentist; they should be able to minimise any potential pain for her

oh dear. My dd did this ages 10, swinging on a chair. Also cut her lip and had to have stitches etc. the dentist was lovely and it repaired really well with a cap and has been
fine since . Dentist said wait til she is 18 or so and then get a really good posh cap on it and no one will ever know.
Your poor dd though. BTW dentist numbed it really well and there was no pain whilst it was being done.

Oh poor dd! I broke one of my front teeth aged 13, almost exactly in half but on a diagonal (top corner to bottom corner). Luckily the root was fine and in the last 23 years I've never had any problems with the actual tooth. The dentist built it up with a kind of white filling I suppose, which looked and felt fine but broke off about 2 years later, when I had it replaced. I then had it taken off and redone again voluntarily just before I got married (13 years ago) because I thought the "fake" part had started to discolour slightly and you could see the join. Haven't had to have it redone again since then.

As long as there's no real damage then it should all be fairly untraumatic. Nobody knows that half my front tooth isn't real unless I tell them - honestly, it isn't noticeable!

Thank you all. It has always been something I dreaded happening. Now it is something that has happened, I feel devestated, but trying to feel positive that it can be fixed and isn't then end of the world. (I can be a little dramatic about teeth issues).

It was hard knock- she was playing hide and seek and ducked down behind some drawers and banged her tooth on the top. Her front teeth do stick forward quite a bit (something we need to have looked at) so they are easy to bash on things unfortunately.

Dd is coping well, managing to eat and not in pain luckily.

christine they said about having more treatment at 18 to us too. There's lots that can be done luckily.

chipping we will definitely put some money aside for her. Did the braces cause a problem for the damaged tooth? We had been pushing for her to be referred to orthodontist, but now I'm worried this is going to cause more problems.

Hi, I broke my tooth when I was the same age as your DD - I went over the top of my scooter and broke the tooth horizontally .

It was repaired after a couple of months by an NHS dentist; he advsed my mum to wait a few months to let the other tooth complete growing so that he could match them up. I don't rememer it being at all painful.

I'm now 43, other than having a small hole filled in the front of the cap about 20 years ago it's never given me any problems. I've still got the origional cap and not one person has ever noticed it's a cap.

Tell your DD not to worry .

That is great to know. Thank you for the positive stories.

I broke my front tooth when I was about 12. It was a diagonal break (don't ask how - PE Teacher related) and the nerve was hanging out and had to be cut off. Ouch!

I had it capped and have since had it replaced once. If you look closely, you can see there is a crack down the tooth but noone has ever noticed - not even DH.

happened to my DD too at the the same age. she is now 14 and the dentist has said its filled until she is around 16 when he will do a proper crown on it but he said he doesnt like to do that kind of work until they are around 16.

the filling has lasted this long with no problems. she fell over at school and hit her tooth on the playground....dentist said its really common!

I broke both my front adult teeth when I was 8. One was just a chip, the other about a 3rd of it came off.

Like others, I was told I'd get a temporary cap and then get a "proper crown" when I was older. Between the ages of 8 and maybe 14, it did come off quite a few times and I was well-versed in the procedure of having it redone. It didn't hurt when it came off and my tooth is still alive.

The last time it came off was on the way home from meeting my extended ILs for the first time (thank god it wasn't on the way!) at the age of 27, pregnant with my first -hurrah for free NHS dentistry when pregnant!

I am generally totally unaware of my cap now. I occasionally dream that is has come off which is annoying but such a relief when I wake up!

One plus is that I am not fearful of the dentist as the majority of times I went, it was just to have the cap put on which was not lovely but not painful or anything.

I did mine the same at about 8. Then about 3 weeks later broke the other one. Both in the swimming pool.

The left one has fallen off a couple of times and been repaired but the right one never has (30yrs). You can't tell be looking and there's a bit of a lumpy join at the back whick i'm so used to i don't even notice it

I also broke one of my bottom front teeth when I fell off a climbing frame straight onto my face . It was crowned and 40 years later I've just had it redone as it broke off. The dentist said it was only meant to last 10 years so that was value for money.

I knocked half of one of my front teeth out when I was 7/8. They waited a few months until Dentist was sure my other tooth had finished growing, then filled in the other one to match. This was 35 years ago, I can remember having it redone a couple of times as a child. Then at about 18 had it redone with porcelain, its still going strong now, and you would never know.

The only problem apart from the above (which was no big deal) was that in my late twenties I started suffering pain in that tooth. It was x-rayed and apparently it was the nerve dying. I was told to use sensidene toothpaste and the pain went away.

I remember taking it very much in my stride - don't worry the dentist will sort it out and you will never know!

XX

My 10yo DD did exactly the same last year but the school kept the piece of tooth and the dentist was able to bond it back on. We thought it had survived but when she got a major tooth infection a few months later, we discovered that it had actually died at the time.

Anyway the dental hospital treated the infection (which was traumatic in itself and almost led to DD being hospitalised) and said that she should be ok with the tooth long term. It might just discolour slightly.

However the night before we flew on holiday this Easter it broke again after she bit into a hard piece of chocolate. It had been 13 months since the initial break and now it's been fixed again.

We're just hoping it lasts until she's 14/15 when apparently her jaw will have stopped growing. Then it's more than likely she'll have an implant.

Several people have told my DD how they did a similar thing at the same age and you can hardly see the difference between their implants & real tooth.

Your poor dd beanbagz. The infection sounds terrible- has she had a lot of pain with all the treatment? We also kept the piece of tooth but it looks like it can't be stuck on. Did they find damage to the root o any xrays?

I didn't break my tooth but the nerve died in my front tooth when I was around 12. I had a cap on it for years, then a crown. Finally a couple of years ago I had an implant, and I'm almost 35.

Not the end of the world, but for the record, my Mum was (and still is ) absolutely traumatised by it all.

I am not.

I knocked half of my front tooth out when I was thirteen (slipped on a wet floor at school, right at the beginning of 'compensation culture' and the secretary's horrified look and desperate phone call to the caretaker to put some signs up was almost worth it...). Had an emergency cap put on and was told the tooth might die as I'd only just missed the nerve. The dentist did such a good job that, at 25, I still have the original cap and no need for it to be replaced.

I have bashed it several times on mugs and a couple of years ago it became very, very sensitive. A different dentist gave me some high fluoride special toothpaste to put on it at night and that seems to calm it down. He said it would put a temporary barrier over the tooth, reinforced if I did it every night. I now only top up every week or so and the tooth is still alive.

It's more common than you might think - or than I thought - I had a housemate at uni with the same problem (same tooth) and DP has half of one of his front teeth knocked out too.

another one who broke a front tooth at 8 - in fact 2 front teeth, on my 8th birthday, at Brownies!! - had caps, until I fell on one again in my teens and instead of breaking it, killed the nerve (and killed the other one at some point, can't remember how); since then I have had crowns. I was very self conscious about the cap and the original crowns, but this was Many Years Ago; since having crowns that didn't have the metal inside (makes the 'tooth' part look flat, somehow) I don't think anyone could tell. And I broke one crown and knocked the other tooth backwards about 20 years ago, but the tooth 'posts' in the middle are still holding up, though it's about 35 years since the original break.

Wow, you are all very brave! I'm a bit of a dentist coward, despite never ever needing treatment on my teeth... So I really feel sorry for dd having a life of dental work ahead of her (if she gets unlucky... Or clumsy!).

I can understand why your mum is traumatises jenny - I keep reliving the moment it happened with utter disbelief that my dd has really lost almost half of her adult tooth .

Oops posted too soon traumatised not traumatises

It's good to hear most of you have had positive experiences with teeth being capped, so I don't feel so worried about it now.

IsLovingAndGiving it was terrible. DD had a temperature, her face had swelled and she was a bit delerious but i hadn't realsied how serious it could be until i took her to the hospital. Apparently you can get blood poisoning from a tooth infection and i had had a school friend who died of blood poisoning so i quickly realised how things can progress.

Anyway DD had to have root canal work without anesthetic (which would have spread the infection) and had a week with an open drain on her tooth. This unfortunately led to pooling in her gum so they had to make an incision to drain it.

All this on top of adult doses of 2 types of antibiotics. It was heartbreaking i can tell you and it was only when they'd finished the incision that she cried.

I'm in tears just remembering how brave she was.

dd2 did it headbutting the pavement earlier this year. The repair looks fine (frankly better than the original), it may need replacing in the future. Horrible and traumatic at the time, we had an ambulance out and everything, but not the end of the world as it turned out.

Hi there, Loving and Giving, I have just started a similar thread to yours because my 7 year old broken her front tooth Sunday just gone.

How is your daughter now? Some 8 years later? x