Usually, if you have a trauma to the teeth, it’s good to follow up with your dentist. Everyone should do this actually. You should see a dentist every 6 months. There are two ways it could happen.
Your dentist could pick up an infection and tell you that the crack has become bigger because of the trauma, now you need to extract it because of the infection.
Sometimes the infection actually doesn’t hurt, so you do not know that it’s getting worse. When we take X-rays, sometimes we can see these silent infections.
So your dentist can pick it up and tell you that it is getting bigger, you have to take it out because this tooth has become a cyst and you need to replace it with a dental implant.
It’s kind of like the end of the lifespan of that traumatised tooth. We don’t know how long that could be, sometimes the tooth can be traumatised and need a dental implant one year later or you could keep that traumatised tooth for 30 years before you get problems like leakage then you get a dental implant.
So the time frame, we have no idea, but it can be picked up by your dentist if you go for regular checkups.
But very often, what would happen is that if your tooth is traumatised and is at the end of the lifespan, you yourself would notice that there’s pain or swelling or pus coming out. In those scenarios, if we cannot save the tooth anymore, the tooth must be extracted and replaced with a dental implant.
