Hi dental fans, in this video I’ll show you how you can temporarily replace a lost filling
and recement a loose crown or bridge by yourself.
Hi, I’m Dr. Rich, a general dentist with over twenty years of experience,
I’m helping you learn about dentistry and teeth so that you can have a very nice
smile. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss my weekly dental videos.
So you may have at some point in your life lost a filling or had a crown come loose.
But it’s the weekend and your dentist is closed until monday. So what do you do?
Well one option is you can go to the drugstore or grocery store and pick
up the DenTek Temparin Max repair kit. I bought this package at my local WalMart.
It’s almost the same material that I use at my office for temporary fillings.
It even contains oil of cloves, also known as eugenol, which helps reduce tooth pain. You might
have heard of oil of cloves from the dentist scene in the movie Marathon Man starring Dustin Hoffman.
The instructions are printed on the back of the package. Inside the package are the
temporary filling material as well a placement tool. One end of the tool is a scoop and the
other end has a ball end to help you pack the filling material and smooth it down.
In addition to the tool, I recommend you grab a few things that you most likely have around
the house. Get a cotton ball or two, a pair of tweezers, some floss and a toothpick or two.
So first with your toothpick, make sure there is no food stuck down where the filling used to be.
If you lost a filling that went in between your teeth,
use the floss and the toothpick to remove any food that might be stuck there.
Next, take a bit of the cotton ball, roll it between your fingers,
then grab it with the tweezers and use it to dry off the tooth as best as you
can. Now take some of the temporary filling material and roll it into a ball.
Using your fingers or the scoop end of the plastic tool that came with the repair kit,
place the ball of filling material into the cavity in your tooth.
Press it down into place with your finger or use the ball end of the plastic tool.
If it doesn’t fill up the cavity, get some more filling material and add it to
what you’ve already placed. Once the cavity is full, smooth it down with your finger.
Then bite your teeth together a few times and move your jaw
all around to shave down the filling material so that it fits your bite.
The filling material takes two to three hours to set up fully so don’t eat on that side for
a few hours. Try not eat anything hard or sticky until you can see your dentist.
If it was a filling that was in between teeth that fell out, don’t floss the temporary filling.
To recement a crown or bridge that fell out, first try to clean out any food or plaque that might
be stuck inside the crown. There might be old cement in the crown but don’t worry about that.
Then take the crown and test fit it on your tooth.
Does the crown not fit onto your tooth anymore? Does the bite feel off?
Did your tooth break off flush with your gum line? If any of these things happen,
don’t try to recement your crown or bridge. Hold onto it until you see your dentist.
Does it still fit and feel ok when you bite down on it? Good, then you can try and recement it.
First dry off the inside of the crown. You can use either some of the cotton ball and
tweezers or if you have a can of compressed air you can use that.
Take a little bit of the temporary filling material and put it inside of the crown.
Then clean off any food that may be stuck to your tooth with a toothpick, and then use
the cotton and tweezers to dry off your tooth. Don’t use the compressed air inside your mouth.
Then take the crown and put it on your tooth. Make sure you put it in correctly. It only fits in
one way. Once it’s in, press it into place with your fingers then bite down on it a few times.
Remember, it takes 2-3 hours for the material to set up. Try not to eat on that side until then.
Also don’t eat anything really hard or sticky.
See your dentist as soon as possible to have it fixed permanently.
I hope you will find this video helpful. Has
anyone watching ever had to use this temporary filling material?
Let me know in the comments below. Thanks very much for watching and see you in the next video.