1st dentist visit - banged tooth may not come through properly :-( Advice please

[OhForFrigSake]

I took my DS (almost 4) for his first appointment at the dentist today.

It was all fine until I mentioned that his front teeth were slightly misaligned. The dentist asked whether he had ever banged his teeth. I remembered that he had fallen on a tiled floor when we were on holiday 18 months ago and banged them. They bled at the time but looked fine afterwards - they didn't discolour or go wobbly. Since then I have noticed that one tooth is slightly further back and shorter. It looks fine but you can tell if you look properly.

The dentist mentioned that the blow may have damaged the adult tooth behind it which could come through misaligned, discoloured, ridged or chipped or it could be ok. As you can imagine I feel pretty gutted about it. We won't know until the adult tooth erupts around 7 years of age.

Does anyone have a similar experience. Was the tooth ok or damaged and how was it repaired (if at all)?

My Dd whacked her tooth off a table and it got pushed right back and bled. It's position did improve a little and the adult tooth came through totally fine. Fingers crossed his does too.

My dd broke both her front teeth when she was two. After a year they eventually developed abscesses above them and had to be extracted. I was warned by the nhs dental hospital dentist that the abscesses could have damaged the adult tooth and told all sorts of scare stories. When I finally saw a paediatric dentist he said it was very unlikely that any of this would affect the adult teeth. The teeth came through when she was 6 with no problems. Short version: try not to worry, damage to the adult teeth is unusual.

Thanks both. I know I can't keep worrying for 3-4 years until the adult teeth come through. I'll keep my finger crossed!

Why didn't the dentist just take an x-ray to see what was going on with the adult tooth, if he was worried it could be damaged?

DS fell on his face at 18 months and broke a front tooth. He then fell again twice on the same tooth over the next two years and that broken tooth turned dark and "died". At about the age of 3, there appeared a hole in his gum through which we could see the root of his milk tooth which is apparently a sign of abscess (it wasn't painful because the tooth was already dead) so it was pulled.

He is now 7 and the adult tooth has only just come in. It looks perfectly fine and is in line with the other adult teeth. Then again, there was never any doubt that the adult tooth would be fine because it was x-rayed several times over the last 5 years.

Mine knocked his front teeth back up into the gums at the age of about 5. They came back down and went grey, falling out at around 6. We had the same concerns and it was a waiting game but his adult teeth have cone through normally.