I am sure many of you have heard of or seen firsthand the stress of a
child getting hit in the face in a sport and the front tooth either
completely comes out (in dental terms-AVULSION), or the tooth
significantly moves due to a fracture in the tooth. While these teeth
can be saved, there are chances that the tooth can become fused to the
bone (ankylosis) and will eventually need to be taken out. There are
also chances that the tooth just cannot be saved if it was out of the
mouth for too long. Here is a great article on how new technology can
"replace" these teeth with another tooth.
This process is called AUTOTRANSPLANTATION. What does this mean???
Well,
read the article, but in a nutshell, it means taking another tooth in
the mouth (like a wisdom tooth or a premolar) that is still forming and
removing it and replacing it in the front tooth that was lost. I had
the pleasure of doing this procedure during my orthodontic residency
program and the outcome was amazing.
I will share those photos as well in this post.
http://www.ajodo.org/article/S0889-5406(12)00448-9/fulltext
Here is my case: 9 year old boy with his upper left front tooth still not in his mouth
