How to Fix a Chipped Tooth? Understand Your Options

Although dental enamel is the hardest tissue in the human body, it can still become chipped. You can chip your tooth when biting down on hard food like nuts, using metal straws, using your teeth to open packaging or due to an accident like a trip and fall.  

Most of the time, a minor chip is a cosmetic issue and may only impact your self-esteem. However, severely chipped teeth can cause discomfort and lead to an oral infection if left untreated. 

Depending on the size of the chip, your dentist may recommend tooth contouring, dental bonding or dental veneers. A cracked tooth requires restorative treatment such as a root canal and dental crown rather than cosmetic dental treatments like porcelain veneers.  

How to Fix a Chipped Tooth at Home? 

You should always visit your dentist to restore your chipped tooth, but you can take some self-care measures until you see your dentist. 

• Rinse with a saltwater solution to reduce the risk of infection 
• Manage discomfort with an over-the-counter pain reliever  
• Cover jagged edges with dental wax or sugarless gum
• Eat a liquid or soft diet to avoid biting down on the damaged tooth

How to Fix a Chipped Tooth at Your Dental Practice?

The treatment for how to fix a chipped tooth prescribed by your dentist depends on the severity of the damage and your smile goals.

In most cases, a minor chip can easily be restored using a non-invasive dental treatment like tooth contouring or dental bonding. 

However, for a larger chip, your dentist may suggest dental veneers such as porcelain veneers, especially if you also want to mask dental flaws like tooth discolouration. 

• Tooth Contouring 

Tooth contouring involves removing a tiny amount of the tooth’s enamel to change its shape. It is an affordable and non-invasive way to fix minor chips, abnormal tooth shapes, and pointy ends. 

• Dental Bonding

Cosmetic dental bonding is another quick and effective treatment to fix a minor chip in a tooth. Your dentist chooses a composite resin that matches your natural tooth colour before roughing the tooth’s surface and applying a special liquid or gel to help the bonding material adhere.  

The bonding is moulded to your tooth’s shape and cured with ultraviolet light before being shaped and polished.  

• Dental Veneers

Dental veneers are a minimally invasive cosmetic procedure. Your dentist has to remove a small amount of enamel from the surface of your tooth before applying the dental veneers. This makes getting dental veneers an irreversible treatment. 

At Gordon Family Dentistry, in addition to traditional porcelain veneers placement, which takes two or three visits, we also offer CEREC technology to design and place your dental veneers in a single visit. We offer both composite and porcelain veneers.  

Same-day porcelain veneers are created using a 3D scan of your teeth, and the data is sent to our onsite milling machine for fabrication.   

Dental veneers can cover chips, stains, gaps and misaligned or worn teeth. Porcelain veneers look and feel natural and are stain-resistant. 

Repairing a Chipped Tooth in NSW 

Don’t stress over how to fix a chipped tooth. After examining your chipped tooth, our skilled dental team at Gordon Family Dental can renew your confidence by cosmetically contouring, bonding or applying porcelain veneers or cosmetic resin dental veneers to enhance your smile. 

If the chip is large and causing you pain or you have an infection, and you need emergency dentistry, contact us at (02) 9159 6163, so Dr Ken Ho and his team can alleviate your discomfort and restore your beautiful smile. 

Note: Any surgical or invasive procedure carries risks. Before proceeding, you should seek a second opinion from an appropriately qualified health practitioner.