Dec. 21, 2022

This paid piece is sponsored by Siouxland Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery.

Happy holidays, friends!

Kids injuring themselves is never a fun topic. Pediatric injuries involving teeth oftentimes can add further levels of care to remedy the situation. Surprisingly, the most common times teeth are injured are during play 58 percent and 32 percent during sports.

So when the families all get together and the kids are horsing around the Christmas tree, outside or in the basement, this may be the time for an adult to monitor the fun!

Fortunately, the composite bonding agents we have today are wildly superior to what we utilized two decades ago, and thus rebounding the incised edge of a tooth is possible. Though if the pulp of the tooth is exposed during the injury, many times a root canal is needed.

Composite rebuilds are usually a temporary fix, and these edges tend to fall off over time, especially if one bites into harder foods. Eventually, a type of more permanent restoration is needed for definitive treatment. These can range from veneers to three-quarter crowns to full crowns, also known as caps. All these items are constructed with different materials for different purposes and a patient’s specific esthetic needs.

Here is a healthy, rambunctious nearly 7-year-old who was playing around with her older sister and slipped on a wooden floor. The result was a tooth injury, shown in the pictures, along with the repair.

Now, that’s only part of the story. One still needs to look at the mechanism of injury and the force of impact. Why is this so? Well, many times a great deal of force is transmitted to the head and neck, and can result in other injuries such as a jaw fracture or neck injury. So as everyone focuses on the visible tooth trauma, we sometimes forget that other injuries also can be present. In situations such as this, it is best to have the child evaluated that same day by their medical doctor.

Falls from standing rarely result in other significant injuries, but it does happen, and the results can be catastrophic. Falls from a height other than standing definitely require an increased level of evaluation, whether the patient is a child or an adult.

Now that we have those facts presented, we have included links to articles that further discuss pediatric injuries involving teeth:

• Craniomaxillofacial trauma in children
• Traumatic dental injuries in pediatric patients
• Permanent anterior teeth fractures
• Prevalence of dental trauma
• Clinical and epidemiological survey of adolescents with crown fractures of permanent anterior teeth

Please make sure to be safe, and have a very happy holiday season with family and friends!