Tackling Your Dental Treatment Plan

Young families often have tight budgets, but dental care is very important in preventing, diagnosing and/or treating issues before they cause a child serious problems. This article will discuss three types of conditions that require treatment early on:

An Impacted Tooth

Even though impaction is most common in older teens and young adults with their wisdom teeth, a young child can develop an impacted tooth from an improperly-positioned tooth bud. It can also occur when a baby tooth is lost prematurely and other baby teeth then drift into the empty space. When it is time for the permanent tooth push through the gums and emerge, there is little or no space for it.

An impacted tooth can cause pain when your child bites down or chews. It can also interfere with the proper alignment of their other permanent teeth.

Treatment may involve a minor surgical procedure to allow the tooth to erupt and be gradually aligned with the other teeth.

If your child gets a baby tooth knocked out due to a fall or other accident, your dentist can prevent impaction from occurring by putting a spacer or false tooth in the gap. If the tooth is broken off but the bottom part is still in place, a dentist can bond a tooth colored plastic filling or cap to it, and cracked baby teeth can be repaired with amalgam or porcelain filling material.

Abnormal Teeth

Two abnormal tooth conditions that can cause problems are geminated teeth and talon cusps. A geminated tooth results when two teeth have developed from one tooth bud and cause an extra-large disfigured tooth to emerge. This tooth will contain two tooth pulp (inmost part of tooth containing nerves and blood vessels) chambers but will have just one root.

It may not be a problem so a dentist may recommend leaving it alone.  A very large or wide geminated tooth will need removal however, because it can cause:

• Tooth decay where the two teeth are improperly joined

• Overcrowding

• Prevent proper eruption of the other teeth

• A bad bite

A talon cusp is a claw-like growth that can develop on the back of canine or incisor teeth. It may cause malocclusion (irregular bite that causes problems with biting/chewing food) or over-crowding, gum or tongue irritation, and plaque accumulation around the cusp. If this growth doesn't contain pulp, your dentist can grind it down, but a pulp-containing cusp may need a root canal before grinding.

Abnormal Number of Teeth

An abnormal number of teeth can cause problems too. An extra tooth, hyperdontia, may develop sometimes in the gum but it probably won't have a developed root. It will need to be extracted to avoid interfering with the eruption of the other teeth or causing them to emerge in a crooked fashion.  

Hypodontia is the term for missing one to six teeth, and oligodontia is the absence of more than six teeth. An extremely rare condition, Anodontia, results when none of child's permanent will grow in.

For these conditions, full or partial dentures may be considered, so that a child can eat, breathe and speak naturally. These would also be needed for maintaining proper facial structure and jaw development. Since these conditions are genetic, a child may also have other dental problems such as malformed teeth, poorly developed or smallish teeth, teeth with irregular or thin enamel and more.

As the child grows up, a multi-disciplinary approach will be used to correct these problems. Implants may be used to replace missing teeth and bonding, crowns, and fillings may help with appearance and function of the other teeth.

To recap, be sure to take you child to the dentist if you see any signs that they could have one of these problems: a painful impacted tooth trying to erupt, teeth coming in that are abnormal in appearance, or an abnormal number of teeth coming in (or are missing). To learn more, contact a company like Jeffrey S. Thaller DMD with any questions you have.