It was just a routine day at the office for us. But not for our patient John. A senior at Amity High School in Woodbridge, John took a hockey puck to his front tooth! At first glance, it looked like a case of “man vs. hockey puck with the puck winning!” When John showed up at our office in Orange nearly 1 hour later, we collectively said “Not so fast Mr. Puck!”
Our patient John was cheerful but obviously distressed when he came in. We ultimately got him back to normal!
The photo above shows before and after shots of John. How did we do it? Did we mention that it was the Senior Prom in 36 hours?
Due to the extent of the fracture and the pain, we had to do an immediate root canal. Upon completion of that procedure, we did bonding to give John something to smile for the Prom. It worked.
For a fracture of this size, bonding is not the best long term solution. Cases like these require crowns. So, we prepared the tooth for an all ceramic crown. We did custom shading of the porcelain so it would match his other tooth completely. We were also able to close the gap slightly between his two front teeth. See a closeup below:
Before and after photos. We did an all porcelain crown. Even at this closeup, there is no way you can tell it is a crown! Photos and dentistry by Dr. Nicholas Calcaterra.
John is now a student at UConn in Storrs and is very happy with his new tooth! And he is careful of hockey pucks. See you at your next cleaning John!
About Nicholas Calcaterra DDS