My 17 month old son fell about a week ago and pushed his top front baby tooth up into his gum. I took him to a pediatric dentist and he had an x ray. When he first fell we could not see his tooth at all. We thought he knocked it out. By that night we could see a small part of it. After about a 3 days we could see about 1/4 of it. The dentist said it may or may not come back down. There is also a chance it may abcess and/or have to be pulled. We are not sure if his permant tooth is damaged. The dentist said we may not know until it comes in when he is 6 or 7 years old. Does anyone have experience with this situation? What can I expect? Thanks for you help
My daughter fell face first onto a marble staircase. I also thought she knocked it out. X-rays showed it up there... and showed her permanent teeth as well. Dentist said they could remove it, or we could wait. He also said it would most likely discolor and abcess. It did neither. I dropped right back into place, never changed color... and she now has beautiful permanent teeth. Best of luck!
Really all you can do is watch and wait. Each injury is different, and each kid and their recovery is different. Stay in touch with your dentist. This is what they are paid for.
My brother damaged his front tooth when young. The perm tooth dropped without issue. He is now 22 and has a corn shaped yellow spot on his front tooth.
My neighbor's kid just fell 3 days ago. Knocked 3 front teeth back up into his gums. The xrays show the perm teeth and didn't see damage, but you can't really know until they drop.
My daughter fell when she was 18 months and knocked her front tooth cattywompus. It never corrected itself. It turned slightly brown, but not gray (which would have been bad, because gray means the tooth is dead).
We are having to extract it now that she is 5 years, because she has already started losing teeth. She lost both her front bottom teeth and her dentist said the top front would be next... And probably sooner than later. Some start losing teeth at age 4, some at 6 or 7.
The problem is that, if there is a tooth which had trama to it, it's common for the roots to harden and not dissolve (which is how they get a loose tooth). Instead the roots of that tooth harden and cause the permanent tooth to come in behind or infront of it. Eventually the baby tooth will get loosened but the perm tooth is crooked or displaced by it. So, we have to get that tooth extracted. The X-rays already show her perm tooth(in the gum) is shifted and slightly out of alignment. So if the 'boo-boo tooth' is taken out, we are hoping her perm tooth will be able to correct it's placement and come in straight.
Try not to brush his boo boo tooth for a while, and when you start to, only gently. Because you do want him to have that tooth for a few more years.
This happened to my son as well and after a few months the tooth did come back down. Now it's been almost 2 years and the tooth is all the way back down. Our dentist said the same thing about the permanent tooth. It may or may not have been damaged slightly when the baby tooth got pushed up. We did have to limit crunchy/hard things for a while just to be sure that as the baby tooth came back down it was allowed to do so without being aggravated in the process. Good luck!
Oh my gosh this just happened to us on Thursday night! Everywhere was closed on Good Friday and it took us 7 hours to finally get referred to a pediatric dentist that would take us! We are in the same boat, but we have a follow up apt in 6 weeks for him to check on it. We are praying for the tooth to move down and for there to be no absessing, I will pray for you too!
this happened to my daughter- we thought our dogs ate her tooth! Then at the dentist- we saw something coming out of her gums (her tooth)- I think it took a good week to drop down, but it did! We watched for discoloration and it was no problem, hmmm, she's only 4 1/2- so we shall see- but it seemed BAD when it happened and by the next wk. we were laughing about it. Hope you have the same experience!
As a dental assistant ill tell you that the dentist is right, the permanant tooth is probably not damaged, but you never know.. you wont be able to tell until it grows in though. often when there is trauma to a tooth (which is usually a front tooth unfortunately) it can cause an abscess which is infection around the root tip (main reason why people have to get root canals) in which case, if this happens to a baby tooth, your better off just getting it pulled. In adult teeth, if there is trauma, it may not show up immediately, but 5, 10, or 15 years down the road that tooth may suddenly start to turn gray as a result of slowly dying nerves. So just pay attention to it as he gets olderr, nothing else much you can do.
My daughter did this too after a cruising around the table accident at about 11 months old. She was cruising on the table and fell onto the edge and pushed up a tooth. Took about 3 days, but it came back down without any problems with the tooth.
I've seen the opposite happen with a Friend's son tho - he somehow fell and busted his tooth into his gums around 20 months, and it came partially down but the tooth 'died' and turned gray - had to be pulled.
