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What happens if I don't have severely broken teeth pulled?

N

net321

Junior member
Joined
May 23, 2008
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1
My rear bottom molar has broken apart so much that there is just about nothing left to see. My gums have covered up what remains underneith.

A few years ago my top molar (which is kind of angled to form a spike) broke the two teeth under it. I believe this was caused by me always resting my jaw on my hand while sitting at the desk.

The back tooth that is almost not visable anymore is still white. The one in front of it about 60% visable turned a light gray.

Does it really matter if I just let them break down to the gumline? Can what's still underneith cause problems?
 
Hello net321.:welcome::hug2:
Now I am no dentist but I have the kind of experiance that you are speakinf of.

All of my top teeth we're broken to the gumline on the top...I had 3 where the gums had grown completely over remains of my tooth.

At first they diden't hurt at all So I ignored them....the pain started getting worse and more constant(over about 4 years)and the teeth that had the gums grow over them started to get painful abcesses(sorry can't spell)

Like I said I am no dentist or anything even close but For me they did start to cause problems sooner or later.
I hope this helps.
 
Hi there, welcome to the site and straight off, what I'm going to say might be a little cruel but....Putting things out of sight, like if you were in debt and ignoring the letters flooding in by putting them in a drawer doesn't solve anything and the root cause of the problem just escalates and gets worse. Same with teeth. If they start to break down to gumline and gum grows over, ok there may be no pain, they may be out of sight and you forget about them because all you can see is gum, but the fact that they have broken probably means they are decayed to some extent, therefore there is probably some bacteria which will now be in your gums building up.
I don't want to scare you (or perhaps just a little bit) to make you realise that things very rarely get better without a helping hand.

I know I'm a fine one to talk because I waited absolutely decades before I could summon up the courage to go to the dentist and then it was only because it became visible, but with the help of this forum I found a wonderful dentist, and went through what I had to.

But as an older member of this wonderful forum, I really do my best in conjunction with everyone elsel here to try and get you to the dentist as soon as possible. It's never as bad as we imagine, and I know that fear of going to the dentist is also combined with shame and embarrassment but believe me, if that too is holding you back, the minute you let a dentist see your mouth, that disappears and already without anything being done, an enorous burden is lifted from your shoulders. There are so many compassionate, empathetic dentists out there and with their modern equipment and caring attitude no dental procedure needs to be painful. Ok, no one is ever going to wake up one morning and say, Oh, lovely day, think I'll pop down to the dentist for fun, but so many of us now can make appointments knowing that it won't be painful, that the dentist won't berate us or be awful in any way. So my advice to you is to read some of the stories here, continue to ask questions, post messages just writing about your concerns and fears over your teeth and hopefully we can get you to the point of starting to find a dentist because in your heart you must know that you can't ignore your teeth any longer. So please, please, let's help you to help yourself. You really will be pleased in the end.
 
These "submerged," broken down roots continue to be infected, but often drain so that there may not be any acute symptoms like aches or swellings. As you can imagine though, it's not the healthiest thing to leave around since there will definitely be bacteria present. It's usually when you or the dentist is going on vacation that these roots typically flare up into a bad abscess and toothache.

If you're lucky, sometimes they do come out on their own as one person mention happened to them on my forum. I'm not much of a betting man so I usually recommend that these remaining roots be yarded out since really they aren't serving any useful purpose except being potential timebombs and sources of infection. Just think of it this way, if you had a few shards of broken glass stuck in your arm, is there any good reason to leave them there? :(

In some cases if the nerve has receded away enough, the molar can disintegrate down to the gum level without getting infected. If left to continue to decay they do eventually abscess once the nerve is involved.
 
These "submerged," broken down roots continue to be infected, but often drain so that there may not be any acute symptoms like aches or swellings. As you can imagine though, it's not the healthiest thing to leave around since there will definitely be bacteria present. It's usually when you or the dentist is going on vacation that these roots typically flare up into a bad abscess and toothache.

If you're lucky, sometimes they do come out on their own as one person mention happened to them on my forum. I'm not much of a betting man so I usually recommend that these remaining roots be yarded out since really they aren't serving any useful purpose except being potential timebombs and sources of infection. Just think of it this way, if you had a few shards of broken glass stuck in your arm, is there any good reason to leave them there? :(

In some cases if the nerve has receded away enough, the molar can disintegrate down to the gum level without getting infected. If left to continue to decay they do eventually abscess once the nerve is involved.


Zzz this is pretty much what i am experiencing at the moment - the tooth is broken to the gumline but i think my upper wisdom teeth which are pushing my top teeth is aggravating it - my gumis still open - a hole is there where the remnants of the tooth are - my question is how will this be removed and treated ??
 
To extract the tooth, it may need to be sectioned and removed in pieces. It might not. It really depends on the situation. Some can be removed with forceps and a little bit of effort. Others need more help coming out.
 
To extract the tooth, it may need to be sectioned and removed in pieces. It might not. It really depends on the situation. Some can be removed with forceps and a little bit of effort. Others need more help coming out.


Zzz what does that mean sorry ? sectioned ?

Also if an healthy tooth next to this damaged tooth as sort of moved over some of the damage can this have implications for the healthy tooth ?
 
Sometimes the remaining portion of the tooth is like an anchor locked in the jaw bone. Often it's easier to take out the tooth when the roots are separated in pieces. Ever play with those puzzles as a child that you had to figure out which piece needed to come out first before the other parts will follow? The first piece gets in the way of the path of exit for the other pieces. Once the first one is freed, the others tend to follow easily.

The adjacent teeth can tilt over the missing crown portion of the broken down tooth. Although it's probably nothing detrimental to the health of the leaning tooth, it's not that great for it's alignment in the arch and bite. It also can get in the way of the exit path of the tooth to be extracted and make restoration of the area more challenging due to the angulation. Usually it's position is not a problem as long as there's room for the extracted tooth to clear the teeth, and in other cases the pieces just need to be made smaller or rotated out to clear the obstruction.
 
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Sometimes the remaining portion of the tooth is like an anchor lock in the jaw bone. Often it's easier to take out the tooth when the roots are separated in pieces. Ever play with those puzzles as a child that you had to figure out which piece needed to come out first before the other parts will follow? The first piece gets in the way of the path of exit for the other pieces. Once the first one is freed, the others tend to follow easily.

The adjacent teeth can tilt over the missing crown portion of the broken down tooth. Although it's probably nothing detrimental to the health of the leaning tooth, it's not that great for it's alignment in the arch and bite. It also can get in the way of the exit path of the tooth to be extracted and make restoration more challenging due to the angulation. Usually it's position is not a problem as long as there's room for the extracted tooth to clear the teeth, and in other cases the pieces just need to be made smaller or rotated out to clear the obstruction.


Cheers Zzz appreciate the response !!
 
These "submerged," broken down roots continue to be infected, but often drain so that there may not be any acute symptoms like aches or swellings. As you can imagine though, it's not the healthiest thing to leave around since there will definitely be bacteria present. It's usually when you or the dentist is going on vacation that these roots typically flare up into a bad abscess and toothache.

If you're lucky, sometimes they do come out on their own as one person mention happened to them on my forum. I'm not much of a betting man so I usually recommend that these remaining roots be yarded out since really they aren't serving any useful purpose except being potential timebombs and sources of infection. Just think of it this way, if you had a few shards of broken glass stuck in your arm, is there any good reason to leave them there? :(

In some cases if the nerve has receded away enough, the molar can disintegrate down to the gum level without getting infected. If left to continue to decay they do eventually abscess once the nerve is involved.

Hi?
Your response to this members question was so encouraging to read. I have not been to the dentist for nearly 10 yrs but I have 5 upper teeth all of which have decayed to below the gumline and with the gum growing over at least 2 of them. They do get inflamed but there is very little pain and they drain as in your as above explanation. I am petrified that my upper jaw will have started to decay and need to be filled and that I may be left with a facial deformity. I really really hope that I have been told false horror stories and I must say your reply to above poster I found quite comforting. Thank you
 
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Eventually it may lead to an infection if untreated. Long story short I had a root canal w/ crown, and the crown had cracked after I bit into something hard. I had it just glued together for purposes of saving money because at the time I couldn't afford the cost of a new crown. In the next couple of years I developed an abscess. The abscess wasn't painful but there was a gum boil that formed in the top of the gum. I had an apicoectomy done to try and "save" the tooth and clear the infection, but it ended up coming back. I had to have the tooth removed and go through the implant process (which cost me more money in the long run!)
 
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