Sunday afternoon I got a call from a dental colleague who seemed a little stressed out. His patient had an accident and broke her front tooth. He wanted to know if I could see her Monday to fix it? He is a specialist and doesn't provide general dental care, and his patient was very upset and needed help. I asked him to have his patient to text me a selfie showing the chipped tooth, so I could judge what needed to be done and how long an appointment she might need.
After some back and forth, I spoke over the phone to his patient and she wanted to be seen on Monday if at all possible. I remoted into my my dental management program and saw that my Monday schedule was pretty full (since this was the first day back from our summer vacation). She booked an online appointment with me on Wednesday, but I asked her to call Monday at 8:30 to speak with Ida, my office manager, to see if we could rearrange our Monday schedule to get her the hour appointment she would need.
We were able to accommodate her and I was able to place a well matched composite to fix her broken central incisor Monday afternoon.. When she left she was happy and I asked her to text me a selfie photo the next day to see how it looked after 24 hours. This request was made because often the tooth being repaired gets dehydrated during their visit and when a repair is finished it may not look as well matched as it will the next day when the teeth are all rehydrated ( the shades of dehydrated teeth are noticeably lighter than their original shades).
The next day she sent this photo and it appears that we were fortunate and the color I chose was close to perfect. Both of us were happy with the final result.
Her father had asked me how long the repair would last and the answer is I don't really know but some of these repairs can last for decades and some can chip or come off much sooner. Only time will tell but at least for the time being I feel happy that I was able to help!
I'm in the UK and broke a front tooth (UR1) vertically, so the loose piece is about 12mm long, of which 2-3mm is beyond the gum line. My own dentist (and an offical NHS website) thinks any crown where the break is into the gum is going to be suspect, but I got a prelim visit to an implant specialist who thought there was enough solid tooth to do a crown. He did say if it failed, I'd only be in the same position as now, needing extraction and a single-tooth denture (apart from the cost of trying the crown!). From a much earlier situation on your site (Should a tooth thats broken to the gum line be fixed? June 2011) it sounds like the answer is yes, but that was 9 years ago!
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