Cracked, Chipped or Broken Tooth
A cracked tooth does not heal, and it does not stay the same size. Cracks propagate under chewing load, and the difference between a bonded onlay and a lost tooth is usually how long it was left. If a cusp has broken off, a filling has fractured, or you get a sharp jolt when you release a bite, call 6443 9509. Ceramic repairs are designed and milled here, so most are finished in one visit.
- Usual repair
- Bonded ceramic onlay
- Visits
- Usually 1
- Made
- In the clinic
- Fee
- S$1,744 – 2,725
Go to a hospital emergency department, not to us, if you have swelling that is closing your eye or spreading down your neck, difficulty swallowing or breathing, a fever with facial swelling, bleeding that will not stop, or a jaw injury from a fall or accident. Those need hospital facilities. Everything else on this page, we can help with.
What to do in the first hour
Keep any fragment, in milk or saline. It is sometimes bondable, and it always tells us how the tooth failed.
Rinse with warm water and stop chewing on that side entirely. Every bite drives the crack further.
If a sharp edge is cutting your tongue or cheek, cover it with a piece of sugar-free chewing gum until you are seen.
Painkillers as normal. Cold pack outside the cheek if there is swelling.
Call us. A broken tooth with no pain is still urgent — exposed dentine picks up decay quickly, and the crack does not wait for a convenient week.
How bad is it, honestly
Cracks are frequently invisible on radiographs. Diagnosis is examination under magnification, transillumination, and bite testing tooth by tooth.
Why we rarely crown a cracked tooth
The reflex treatment for a cracked tooth is a full crown, which means grinding the tooth down on all sides to take one. It works, and it removes a great deal of healthy tooth to do it. Adhesive ceramics let us do something better in most cases: a bonded onlay that caps and splints the cracked cusp, replaces only what is broken, and leaves the rest of your tooth alone. Designed and milled here, so there is one appointment and no temporary.
A crown is still the right answer when too little sound tooth remains to bond to reliably. We will show you the scan and say which it is.
And the cause
Teeth mostly crack from fatigue, not from one unlucky olive. Large old amalgam fillings act as a wedge with every bite. Clenching and grinding load the same cusps thousands of times a night. Root-treated teeth are drier and more brittle. An uneven bite concentrates force on one tooth until it fails. Repairing the crack without addressing that is how people end up cracking the next tooth along, and the one after that — see why teeth wear down.
Who does this at Calm Dental
Ceramic work carries our restoration warranty. Fees are published, including GST.
Related
Questions
How do I know if my tooth is cracked?
The classic sign is a sharp pain when you release a bite rather than when you clench — biting a seed or a grain of rice and feeling a jolt in one tooth. Sensitivity to cold in a tooth with no obvious cavity is another. Many cracks are invisible on an X-ray, which is why diagnosis relies on examination, magnification, transillumination and bite testing.
Can a cracked tooth heal itself?
No. Enamel and dentine do not regenerate. A crack that is confined to the enamel may never cause a problem and can be monitored, but a crack that has reached the dentine will propagate under normal chewing loads. The question is only how fast.
Do I need a crown for a cracked tooth?
Not necessarily, and this is where we differ from a lot of practices. A full crown means cutting the tooth down all the way round. In most cracked teeth a bonded ceramic onlay covers and splints the cracked cusp while keeping the sound tooth structure — which is the point of biomimetic dentistry. A crown is right when too little of the tooth is left to bond to.
What happens if I ignore a cracked tooth?
The crack propagates. In the best case it stays in the crown of the tooth and the repair gets larger and more expensive. In the worst case it runs into the pulp, which then needs root canal treatment, or below the bone as a vertical root fracture, at which point the tooth cannot be saved at all. Treating a crack early is the cheapest version of this problem.
I chipped a front tooth. Can it be fixed today?
Often, yes. A small chip can be rebuilt in composite in a single appointment. A larger fracture may need a ceramic restoration, which we design and mill in the clinic in the same visit. Bring the fragment if you have it — occasionally it can be bonded back.
Why do teeth crack in the first place?
Usually fatigue rather than one bite. Old large amalgam fillings act as a wedge, clenching and grinding load the cusps repeatedly, root-treated teeth are more brittle, and an uneven bite concentrates force on one tooth. Which is why we look at the cause and not just the crack.