3 Mistakes To Avoid While Trying To Save Your Knocked-Out Tooth
While working around your house, you may have fallen and knocked out your tooth. To save your tooth, you know you need to act quickly. However, while you are rushing around to find and preserve your knocked-out tooth, avoid making the following three mistakes:
Touching the Roots
After scrambling around to find your tooth, you may be in a hurry to pick it up. However, before reaching out to grab it, make sure you pick it up without touching the roots.
Even though your tooth is no longer attached to your gums, the roots are still viable for a short time after the tooth is knocked out. However, if you touch the roots, you risk doing one of two things. First, you may crush one or more of the roots. Second, you risk contaminating the cells with your skin's oil which could kill them faster.
Instead of haphazardly handling the tooth, make sure you pick it up by the crown. Use your fingertips to hold the tooth with the roots pointing up so you do not accidentally touch them on your palm.
Placing the Tooth in Tissue or Gauze
Because you want to keep your tooth safe, your first reaction may be to place it in a piece of tissue or gauze. However, if you do this, you will only be damaging the roots.
As was stated in the previous section, the roots are still living. Because they are still alive, they need moisture to keep them that way.
If you place the tooth in gauze or tissue, the material will suck out the moisture and dry the roots out, killing them before your dentist has a chance to reinsert a potentially viable tooth.
Submerging the Tooth in Water
Since you know that you need to keep the tooth moist, you may be tempted to put it in a small glass of water to preserve it. If you do this, you will most likely kill the roots.
Although water does provide moisture, the cells of the roots are not able to tolerate the chemical additives in the water. The water also does not provide any nutrients to keep the tooth alive.
Instead of water, you have two options for keeping your tooth moist. Your first option is keeping it inside your cheek so that the saliva to which the tooth has grown accustomed can preserve the roots.
However, if you are in a lot of pain or are bleeding, the above option may not work for you. Instead, you could also place the tooth in enough milk to cover it. The milk has both moisture and nutrients that could keep the roots alive for a short period of time.
Avoiding the above mistakes can help increase your chances of saving the tooth while waiting to have it checked out by a dentist. However, you need to get to an emergency dental service as soon as possible after the accident because the faster the dentist can reinsert the tooth, the greater the chance of it taking root.
Contact a dental office like Family First Dentistry LLC for more information and assistance.