Playground and sports accidents can
abound any time of year and often tend to occur more during the summer
months. Falling off playground swings, diving into shallow pools,
baseball, skateboarding, inline skating and bicycling can lead to accidents that
cause tooth injuries.
These accidents mostly cause cracked and fractured
teeth and deep cuts to lips. Higher impact collisions can cause broken
jaws and tooth trauma that leads to sensitivity to hot and cold temperatures.
If you or your child experience a tooth injury
try the following first aid steps for a loose or knocked out tooth:
-
If the tooth is loose, push the tooth back into its original
position, bite down so the tooth does not move and call your dentist or
visit the emergency room.
-
If the tooth is knocked out, pick the tooth up by the crown,
NOT by the root (handling the root may damage the cells necessary for bone
re-attachment and hider replacing the tooth). If the tooth can not be
replaced in its socket on site, do not let the tooth dry out. Place it
in a Save-A-Tooth
solution or a container with a lid and use low fat
milk, saline solution or saliva. Call your dentist immediately, the
longer the tooth is out of the mouth the less likely the tooth will be able
to be saved
-
For more details see Emergency Care.
Over 200,000 teeth are lost yearly in
sporting activities!
Courtesy of DentalNotes
Summer 2000
Babies & Children Dental Index
Emergency
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