My tooth has split in half

[Carl]

Hello

I was eating dinner tonight and a chicken bone managed to split my tooth in half and since then the tooth has been causing me immense pain whenever I try to put my teeth together.

There is a loose bit of tooth still hanging onto my tooth which seems to hurt the most when I try to bite together. I try to pull on it a little bit to see if I can remove it and the pain was so severe that I had to stop and I think I now need to see the emergency dentist urgently.

Could you advise what I should do with my split tooth? Can the tooth be saved or does it need to be removed. If it can be saved, what sort of treatment will it need?

[Dr Mohsen J. Esfahani]

Thank you for your post. You need to see a dentist urgently to assess your tooth and treat accordingly.

It sounds like that there is a tooth wall fracture. The fractured wall needs to be removed and the tooth assessed. If the fracture is above the gum, its usually possible to save the tooth by putting a crown on the tooth.

If the fracture is below the gum level, the tooth may need root canal treatment as well as a crown. If the fracture level is very much on the root surface, then the tooth may not be save-able and may need to be extracted.