Broken supporting tooth

[allyedowd]

I'm a former phobic living in the UK.

My situation is this. I have a partial top denture without metal. It's just two teeth on the right and two teeth on the left.

This morning I broke the front face off the back tooth on the extreme right of my mouth. This is the only tooth I have at the back there and the denture nestles right up to it. This tooth already has a huge filling in it. The tooth isn't hurting (yet) but maybe that's because I only just broke it.

I'm seeing my dentist on Monday. So this is my question. If the dentist can't repair the tooth might my denture still "work" and not flop about if the damaged back tooth is extracted or am I going to need something complicated done? The denture doesn't clip onto the damaged tooth but it does kinda rest against it.

 

[carole]

Sorry for the late answer. The dentist may be able to fix the tooth in which case your denture will still fit. If the tooth needs removing I think you will need new dentures.

 

[Angeldove]

\This tooth already has a huge filling in it. The tooth isn't hurting (yet) but maybe that's because I only just broke it.

You might just need the tooth crowned. I'm dealing with needing a lot of my molars to get crowned (some need root canals too but that's from not taking care of my teeth at all for years) because they've had deep and big fillings in them for 10+ years and that weakens the teeth.

If you just need a filling, I wouldn't think that would change how your denture rests against the tooth.

If you need something like a crown, you might need the crowned tooth and/or the denture tooth adjusted, but that's super easy for the dentist to do. Prior to cementing a crown on, the dentist will test your bite and can use a drill to reshape the crown as needed - just takes a few minutes.