28 Apr Hockey Accidents
Ask any dentist in Edmonton (and Canada) and they will have seen the following patient walk into their clinic:
The patient who got hit in the mouth with a hockey puck or a hockey stick. And then some teeth flew out of the mouth.
This patient ended up with two teeth broken and we were able to fix those with simple fillings. In many ways, this patient was rather fortunate not to require more extensive dental work because the fractures in the teeth were relatively small. Also, the roots of the teeth were not injured, no bones were fractured, nor were any teeth knocked out.
Depending on the extent of the damage, a patient may require dental surgery, stitches, root canal treatments or even have the broken teeth pulled and replaced with dental implants. Some of these treatments may require months to complete so in the meantime, a patient has to deal with missing teeth affecting the way they talk, eat and look.
Despite only suffering minor trauma to the teeth, the incident still left our patient slightly shaken when they came into our dental office. We have all seen professional hockey players with a bunch of missing teeth and that is usually the first image that pops into our minds. Thankfully, that did not happen to our patient. (Although I’m sure most people would gladly trade a tooth for a Stanley Cup.)
You can see some ways to prevent these minor injuries in this article.
Phuong Luu, DDS