Urgent dental guidance
Cracked or Broken Tooth? What to Do
Contact a dentist as soon as you can, even if the tooth does not hurt yet.
If you’ve cracked or broken a tooth, see a dentist as soon as you can — even if it doesn’t hurt yet. A crack that looks minor can still reach the nerve inside the tooth, and once bacteria get in, it doesn’t heal on its own.
What to Do Right Now
- Rinse your mouth with warm water.
- If you have a broken piece, save it and bring it with you.
- If the area is swollen, hold a cold compress against your cheek, not directly on the tooth.
- Avoid chewing on that side, and skip anything very hot, cold, or hard until we’ve seen it.
- Take an over-the-counter pain reliever if you need to — avoid putting aspirin directly on the tooth or gum, which can burn the tissue.
Why It Can’t Wait
A tooth’s outer layers protect a soft, living core — the pulp, which holds its nerve and blood supply. A crack or break that reaches the pulp gives bacteria a direct path in. Left untreated, that leads to infection, and an infection in a tooth doesn’t stay contained to the tooth. Even a crack that isn’t causing pain now can worsen, and a tooth that could have been saved today may not be savable in a few weeks.
What Happens at the Clinic
We start with an exam to see how deep the damage goes. From there, the treatment depends on what we find:
- Minor chip. A cosmetic filling can rebuild the tooth’s shape in one visit.
- Crack reaching the pulp. This usually means a root canal — we remove the damaged pulp, clean the inside of the tooth, and seal it, which stops the infection and saves the tooth.
- Tooth weakened after treatment, or broken enough that a filling won’t hold. A crown covers and protects what’s left of the tooth, restoring its strength and shape.
- Tooth that can’t be saved. If the tooth has to come out, a dental implant is the option that most closely replaces a natural tooth, in form and in function.
Most cracked and broken teeth we see follow that same path — crack, then root canal, then crown, and an implant only if the tooth is genuinely beyond saving. Catching it early is what keeps you higher up that list.
Call Us
Don’t wait to see if it gets worse. Call your nearest branch and describe what happened — we’ll tell you what to do next and get you in as soon as we can.