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General health

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Original poster

What can a dentist do with chipped teeth?

9 replies

beatie · 27/06/2006 14:28

My top front teeth are slightly chipped. The chip doesn't appear to be large enough to warrant caps. Is there an alternative? Am I mad for thinking that teeth can be filed?

OP posts:

motherinferior · 27/06/2006 14:29

My very nice dentist said just leave it.

ComeOVeneer · 27/06/2006 14:34

If it is a small chip it can either be filed down slightly to make it less noticable or just left (alot of them just smooth down themselves over time). A chip can be filled but it usually necessitates removal of more of the tooth to create a retentive hole so that the filling will stay in place. HTH

Original poster

beatie · 27/06/2006 14:38

That does help thanks. I'm seeing my dentist today. Should I ask if it is small enough to be filed? I don't think I want to mess with it further than that.

OP posts:

sugarfree · 27/06/2006 14:41

Ds1 knocked the corner from a front tooth going over the handlebars of his bike.Tbh,I though it would have to be capped,but the dentist made up the corner with 'filling'.Doesn't show at all.

suejonez · 27/06/2006 14:42

Can't you get veneers to cover up chips? May be expensive though, depends how worried you are about the chip, if the dentist says its fine ten its just a cosmetic issue.

ComeOVeneer · 27/06/2006 14:42

I would see if it could be filed (or left) as fillings on the tips of the front teeth are put under tremendous forces when you bite into things and can sometimes come out so if you can avoid a filling I would.

dinny · 27/06/2006 14:44

Beatie, I got my about 1/ of my fron tooth tten out by a horse(yes, really!) and I have a white filling on it and you'd never know it was there. cost nothing on nhs

dinny · 27/06/2006 14:45

I did it when I was 14 and have had it replaced only once (three years ago). it's great!

Bumblelion · 27/06/2006 14:45

I chipped my front tooth when I was about 11 years old on a roundabout. I was pushing it - the old witch's hat style - in the middle, got dizzy and banged my tooth. Chipped the corner right off. My dentist did not do anything about it while I was still at school. When I was about 18 and at work, I went to the dentist one day and was sitting in the chair thinking "oh, this is okay - can't feel him doing anything" (I wasn't sure what I was having done). He then told me that I was finished and could leave. I ran my tongue over my teeth and all I could feel was this huge lump of what felt like polyfiller on my tooth. I came out the dentist and cried. My mum went in to see him and asked what he had done and apparently he told her that if I didn't like it I knew what I could do (but my mum never told me this until a lot later).

Not many people noticed it and I have now had my tooth like this for 20 years or so and it is fine.

I just felt that I had lost part of myself in having my tooth built up as I was known for my chipped front tooth.

Am used to it now (obviously) and if anyone meets me for the first time they do not realise.

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