Sequelae of tooth trauma

Sequelae of tooth trauma    

Sequelae in layman term mean the after effects of the incident. In our scenario, it implies the after effects of dental trauma of teeth. What happens after incident of trauma has occurred. After effects of fall immediately would be some blunt injury to tooth or broken part for which we do splinting or replace broken part by means of a filling. Point to be noted by the public is that the problem is not rectified immediately, but only momentary treatment is done at that point of time e.g. chipping of tooth.

BEFORE

There is a process which can be initiated after this trauma, which is nerve damage or pulpal damage or blood vessel damage to a particular tooth

AFTER

Each tooth internally has a chamber called PULP which actually provides life for tooth. It is like heart to the body. When the trauma or fall occurs this pulp also can get injured. This injury is not seen immediately in most of the situations. It happens in due course of time. For some people it takes days, for some it takes months, for many situations it takes many years. The only visible change that a common man sees is change in color of the tooth.

Color can change either to dark yellow or grayish white, blackish grey etc.

Most important point to be noted is that even though color change happens, the tooth doesn’t cause pain immediately. May be over a period of time it can provide a small low grade discomfort to the person which is ignored most often. When a person comes for a dental consultation a good dentist will elicit and provide needed solution for this problem.

Most of the time considering there is no symptoms or signs of the problem, the person having this issue will ignore the treatment getting done, sitting lack of time, no pain or not believing the dentist.

There will be a moment in his life, when the immune levels come down due to some viral infection. At that point of time this problem will also get activated causing localized swelling, severe pain, discomfort etc.

At this moment when we take an x-ray or elicit the vitality (life of tooth), we are able to assess the root canal and it is severely damaged due to fall or a hit at his/her earlier age. So the dentist gives option of multiple visit for root canal treatment, periapical enucleation (episiotomy).

Sometimes even extraction (removal of tooth) is an option.

So never take trauma to permanent tooth very lightly.