I just had a gold crown on my lower second premolar fall off (I saved it and it looks OK). Nothing hurts. Is it OK to wait until I can get vaccinated for covid? I’m pretty afraid of going to a dentist during this pandemic. I’m nearly 64 and have COPD, hypertension, Type A blood, and male, so in several groups at high mortality risk if I get it. I’m in Maryland and my phase will be the next one announced, who knows when. But if the stump is going to rot into my jawbone in 20 days, maybe it’s better to take the chance.
Web sites vary, anywhere from “you should call an emergency dentist if this happens on a weekend” to “a couple weeks is fine”. Some say I should just get dental cement and fix it myself, but that sounds like asking for trouble with a poor quality bond. I was chewing, and didn’t bite down on the crown, but that seemed somewhat lucky.
If you have a regular dentist, I’d call their office and ask their advice. That said, I’ve been to the dentist a couple of times since this started and they’ve been fairly careful with precautions. Temperature check at the door, mask stayed on until they were ready to work on my mouth, I had to do a rinse with hydrogen peroxide for a minute before they started and they wore a full face mask the whole time.
I’m sure best approach would be to call your Dentist and talk to him/her about their Covid protocol and get advice. They know more about your mouth than we do, and can tell you about their mask/face shield and testing protocols in their office and discuss pro/cons of waiting, self-repair with you.
I’ve been to 2 cleanings/check ups during Covid but I don’t have as many risk factors as you do. My general feeling is that the staff at the dental practice are taking way more risk than their patients and are probably being very careful with PPE and practices.
What else are you doing? Are you going to stores with your mask (or double mask) or are you keeping totally isolated?
Are you in pain? I’ve been doing dental stuff all along. They are masked and shielded. Gloved. Apron. Everything in the room wiped between patients. Limited seating in the waiting room. No magazines or papers. No extra people with the patient, at most one masked parent with child, masked adults enter alone. Peroxide rinse before starting. I got tinted safety glasses while they worked on me. Dentists were doing the extra cleaning to prevent cross contamination long before Covid left the bat.
ETA: they are more at risk from you, your spit, and your blood than you are from them.
I lost a crown about 3 months ago and opted to have it reset as soon as possible. Apart from this regluing, I haven’t seen my dentist for anything else and will wait till I’m vaccinated for cleanings, etc.
My dentist said the danger of waiting is how fast teeth will shift when your bite is adversely affected by the loss of the crown. I could definitely feel the slight shift from waiting even a couple of days. It took a few days before everything shifted back to “normal” after the crown was reset.
The worst part was the $239 they charged me for 15 minutes’ worth of work. COVID was not a concern. They took every precaution and I felt entirely safe. I’m nearly 64 and have a few high risk factors as well.
I have been in an analogous situation when traveling, preferring to wait to see my regular dentist a week later when I got back home. He told me that if you leave the crown off, your teeth can “migrate” (I’m not sure if that’s quite the right term) surprisingly quickly, so that the crown might no longer fit. So if you leave it off completely, you might fact the expense of a new crown. Plus, of course, that would change a few minutes to just re-cement the existing crown into a more risky extended appointment, possibly two appointments if your dentist doesn’t have on-site fabrication.
I wouldn’t venture to say whether trying to cement it back temporarily yourself would be better or worse, hopefully one of our actual dentists will show up. I think I was told to push it back on without cement if it and the tooth appear undamaged and it fits snugly enough that you are not at risk of swallowing it, and get it taken care of as soon as possible.
All the dental staff in my area were prioritized and vaccinated back in January. That substantially lowers the risk. Perhaps you could also ask your dentist to help you out and give you an appointment at a time when they anticipate few other patients will be there, perhaps he might even help you out with an appointment half an hour before he usually opens or something?
My dentist’s office has me wait in the car until they’re ready to have me come in, when I get the temperature check at the door and am brought directly to the treatment room. The point is that I interacted with no other patients.
You as a patient aren’t in significant danger from your dentist and assistants as long as they follow protocol, which they are keen to do. Double masks, face shields, thorough cleanings, few people, etc. I’ve had a crown done, and a cleaning, and feel pretty good about the precautions taken.
However, I’m not in a high risk group. Your specific health concerns may bring you to a different conclusion.
I would call the dentist and discuss the risks of waiting, as well as their safety procedures. That will give you more information.
I went overseas with a temporary crown, and the dentist’s advice was that if it fell off when I was away i should protect the stub of the tooth with sugarless gum until I got home. But perhaps I had enough tooth left to prevent the other teeth from moving. Your dentist will know how much risk of movement there is in your situation.
You can usually buy temporary fillings that might help, depending on where your crown is situated. They only last a few days to a week, however. So unless you know you’re getting your vaccine soon, it won’t help much.
I’d go in now and get it replaced if I were you. Dentists are allowed to have patients, and they are already very sterile anyway. You don’t want to end up with an abscess because everyone else has booked in for overdue annual checks.
I felt less at risk at my dentist than doing a dozen other things a have to do. My dentist is very diligent during non-pandemic times. His protocols now are excellent and I have no hesitation going there.
I’ve got similar risk factors - nearly your age, asthma, hypertension, T2DM (female, though). I did avoid getting regular cleanings last year which I do regret - gotta have a crown done now.
A lost crown means that tooth root is pretty exposed and at risk of further decay, as well as potentially being painful if you accidentally bite down on it (I found this out when a temporary crown decided to vacate the premises while I was chewing something, years ago).
It could be months before you get your vaccine - assuming you have not even had the first shot yet, you’re at least 3 weeks out from being fully immunized and even then it’s a couple weeks before it’s considered fully effective.
I do understand your concern over the risks, but IMO the risks are low enough, and the benefit high enough, that I would not wait.