Broken or chipped a tooth? Do these four things first. Rinse your mouth with warm water, save any broken pieces in a small pot of milk, take paracetamol if you need it, and call Oriel Villas Dental Surgery on 01242 523531. We are open 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, and you do not need to be a registered patient for us to try to help. Outside those hours, phone 111 for the NHS out of hours service. Below is what to do while you wait, and how we repair chipped, cracked and broken teeth at our Cheltenham practice.
The first ten minutes
Teeth tend to break on ordinary days. An olive stone hiding in a salad, a shoulder at five-a-side, an ice cube you forgot you were chewing. Whatever the cause, the first ten minutes follow the same routine.
- Find the fragment if you can. Rinse it gently and drop it into milk. A clean piece of tooth can sometimes be bonded straight back on, and milk keeps it in good condition on the journey to us.
- Rinse your mouth with warm water to clear away any debris.
- If the gum or lip is bleeding, press clean gauze or a damp cloth against it for ten minutes.
- Hold a cold compress against your cheek to limit swelling.
- If a sharp edge is shredding your tongue, a piece of sugar-free chewing gum pressed over it makes a decent temporary cover.
- Take paracetamol or ibuprofen if you are in pain, swallowed with water. Never hold an aspirin against the gum. It burns the tissue and adds a second problem to your first one.
Then ring us. Even if nothing hurts.
Chip, crack or break: why the difference matters
Your tongue is a poor judge of damage. It magnifies small chips into cliffs and misses cracks entirely. What actually matters is how deep the damage goes.
A chip confined to the enamel, the hard outer shell, is mostly a cosmetic problem. Once the softer dentine underneath is exposed, the tooth often becomes sensitive to cold air and hot tea, and bacteria gain a route inwards. If the break reaches the pulp at the centre of the tooth, where the nerve and blood supply live, you will usually know about it, and prompt treatment is the difference between saving the tooth and losing it.
Cracks are sneakier. A cracked tooth can look completely normal and only announce itself as a brief, sharp pain when you bite down or let go. Left alone, a crack does not heal. It travels. This is why we examine and usually X-ray a damaged tooth even when it seems trivial, and why our dentists work with a dental operating microscope when a close inspection is needed.
Treatment options at our Cheltenham practice
There is no single fix for a broken tooth. The right option depends on how much tooth is left and whether the nerve is involved. These are the treatments we offer at Oriel Villas, roughly in order of severity.
Smoothing and polishing
A tiny enamel chip can often simply be smoothed and polished in one short visit, so it stops catching your tongue.
Composite bonding
For most chips, bonding is the workhorse. We build tooth-coloured resin directly onto the tooth in layers, shape it, harden it with a blue light and polish it to match its neighbours. No enamel needs to be drilled away, the whole repair happens in a single appointment, and it is reversible.
Veneers
If a front tooth has chipped repeatedly, or the damage sits alongside staining or wear, a veneer can restore the whole front surface rather than patching one corner.
Inlays and onlays
When a back tooth loses a cusp, a lab-made inlay or onlay rebuilds the missing section. Stronger than a large filling, less invasive than a full crown.
Crowns
A badly broken or structurally cracked tooth needs full coverage. A crown caps the whole tooth, holding it together so the crack cannot spread and the tooth can get back to chewing.
Root canal treatment
If the break has exposed or infected the pulp, we carry out root canal treatment first to clear the infection, then restore the tooth, usually with a crown. Our endodontic work is performed under microscope magnification, which makes a real difference when locating and cleaning fine root canals.
If the tooth cannot be saved
Occasionally a tooth breaks below the gum line and extraction is the kindest option. Even then the story does not end there. A bridge, a denture or a dental implant can fill the gap, and we will talk you through each option before anything is removed.
Three things we would rather you did not do
First, no household glue. Superglue was never designed for mouths. It damages the tooth surface and makes proper bonding harder later. Second, resist the urge to smooth a rough edge with a nail file. You will remove enamel you cannot get back. Third, do not let a painless crack drift down your to-do list. Painless today tells you nothing about next month, and small repairs are always simpler and cheaper than rescues.
Frequently asked questions
Is a chipped tooth a dental emergency?
Will a cracked tooth heal on its own?
What if the whole tooth has been knocked out?
Broken a tooth in Cheltenham? Call us
Phone 01242 523531 during opening hours, 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday. If you are not registered with us, call anyway. We help non-patients whenever availability allows. Outside opening hours, phone 111. And if you are reading this with a fragment of tooth in a pot of milk, stop reading and dial.
Written by Dr Jakub Wojcicki,
Dentist at Oriel Villas Dental Surgery
(GDC No. 84982)