Chipped tooth
Chipped tooth in Greenwich, CT: often a single appointment
A chipped front edge is the repair patients tend to put off the longest and regret putting off the most. It is usually rebuilt by hand in one visit, without touching the rest of the tooth.
How urgent is it?
Routine visit
Not urgent unless it is sensitive to air or cold, which suggests the layer beneath the enamel is exposed.
Opening hours
Mon–Tue 8a–7p · Wed–Thu 8a–5p · Fri 9a–2p
What this usually means
The causes we see most often
01
An accident, often years ago
Many of the chips we repair happened long enough ago that the patient stopped noticing until a photograph reminded them.
02
Edges thinned by grinding
Front teeth ground against each other at night can become translucent and brittle at the tips, then chip with no obvious cause.
03
Everyday habits
Nails, pens, ice, and holding objects between the teeth all take small pieces off the same spot over time.
What to do right now
Before you get here
- 01
Keep the fragment if it is a clean break of any size. Occasionally it can be bonded straight back on.
- 02
If the edge feels rough, try not to run your tongue over it. That sharpens the habit rather than the tooth.
- 03
Notice whether cold air causes a sting. That tells us how deep the chip goes and shapes the treatment.
- 04
There is no need for emergency care unless it is painful, but do book a visit rather than living with it.
What we would do
At the appointment
We check the depth of the chip first, and whether it is the whole story or a symptom of grinding, because rebuilding an edge that grinding will simply chip again is only half the job.
Composite bonding is placed and shaped freehand in one visit, matched to your tooth in daylight, then polished so the join disappears.
For a larger chip, or a tooth chipped repeatedly, a porcelain veneer tends to last longer. We will tell you which we would choose and why, including the cost difference.
How we fix it
The treatments this usually leads to
Q & A
What patients ask us about this
Done well, no. Bonding is layered in more than one shade, because a real tooth is never a single color, and we check the match in daylight rather than under the treatment light.
Typically several years, and longer if you do not grind. It can chip, and it can be repaired without replacing the whole restoration, which is one of its advantages over porcelain.
Barely, if at all. Bonding a chip usually means lightly roughening the surface, not removing healthy tooth structure. That reversibility is why we start there.
Where we are
211 East Putnam Avenue, Suite 2-6, Cos Cob
Minutes from central Greenwich on East Putnam Avenue, with parking at the building.
Patients travel to us from
Describe it in your own words when you call. We will tell you whether it needs us today.