Dental trauma

Cooper18

Just out of A&E after going to aid of young friend who got kicked in the face in work. Gotta love the NHS.

Anyway, one nose broken, 2 black eyes, and several wobbly teeth. Friend is distraught as you can imagine but is utterly devastated about her teeth. She knows the nose will heal and heal well and the black eyes will fade but she is in floods of tears about her teeth. She thinks she is going to lose them all or that the trauma caused tonight will lead to huge problems in the future.

Anyone had any dental trauma before?! She's been told they will require splinting and likely nothing else which to be honest seems like good news to me...They wobble a little for sure, but not much, and they look as straight as they ever were - not displaced in any way. Though I'm no dentist.

So, not asking medical advice really, just curious and concerned. It's been a crappy evening. Any victims or dentists out there? Is splinting an easy job? Can wobbly teeth re-seat themselves? Did you end up with future problems because of a previous trauma? If the answers are no, no, yes - I think my friend is going to require the services of a psychiatrist!

welshdent

This isnt medical in anyway ... but make sure she reports this to the police. There is a system where compensation can be obtained which can go some way to paying for restorative work for the mouth. I have had one or 2 patients utilise this system and also one of my best friends got some money after breaking his jaw in an assault. Beyond that it is impossible for us to say what can be done unfortunately. She would need her mouth assessed ideally by her normal dentist who is likely to be carrying out any work or referring. This allows for continuity. Initial plan should be to get an appointment ASAP. Any remedial temporising work and investigations can be attempted and a plan put in place for ongoing management. In my experience managing the consequences of traumatic injuries to teeth/mouths can potentially take a significant amount of time. Thats to say it may not be quick fixes.

Cooper18

I'm not sure she will be "allowed" to report it to the police, though I don't want to get into details on a public forum. Suffice to say it was a patient who kicked her.

Errata

Often teeth can firm up after they've had a whack.

welshdent

Cooper18 wrote: »

I'm not sure she will be "allowed" to report it to the police, though I don't want to get into details on a public forum. Suffice to say it was a patient who kicked her.

She should still have a route to some form of compensation. I dont think any of the cases I know about resulted in prosecutions but they did get something back which always helps.

http://www.justice.gov.uk/victims-and-witnesses/cica

Fire_Fox

Cooper18 wrote: »

I'm not sure she will be "allowed" to report it to the police, though I don't want to get into details on a public forum. Suffice to say it was a patient who kicked her.

She needs to find out what the official protocol is, read the staff handbook for a start. Is she a member of the union? They can also advise. Did this go into the accident book and will there be a formal investigation?

If she is not 'allowed' to report and she was not at fault then her workplace needs to cover any medical and dental bills, she should keep records of everything, copies of prescriptions, receipts, reports.

Toothsmith

As others have said, she needs to get to her dentist ASAP to put together a treatment plan, and she needs to go through the procedure for reporting such incidents at work - where hopefully there should be some sort of compensation scheme.

**professor~yaffle**

Cooper18 wrote: »

I'm not sure she will be "allowed" to report it to the police, though I don't want to get into details on a public forum. Suffice to say it was a patient who kicked her.

That's terrible
Obviously we don't know the details, but no-one should have to be in fear of being assaulted at work. Why wouldn't she be able to report what sounds like quite a serious assault.

cjj_2

I feel your friends pain. My ds has a wobbly front permanent tooth after a fall on tues night. we went to dentist on weds and he has splinted the tooth. Dentist does feel the tooth will die off but after googling it I see many wobbly teeth reset. This happened to my oh out of two wobbly teeth one was eventually ok but the other wasn't. I think there is hope but unfortunately just a waiting game as some can take a couple of years to die off I understand. Hth

Also ds advised to eat a soft diet for now. Just re read your post, the splinting was painless and involved glueing a wire to the strong teeth either side of the wobbly tooth. I think it was the stuff they use for fillings, but that was it there was no drilling or anything

Cooper18

cjj wrote: »

I feel your friends pain. My ds has a wobbly front permanent tooth after a fall on tues night. we went to dentist on weds and he has splinted the tooth. Dentist does feel the tooth will die off but after googling it I see many wobbly teeth reset. This happened to my oh out of two wobbly teeth one was eventually ok but the other wasn't. I think there is hope but unfortunately just a waiting game as some can take a couple of years to die off I understand. Hth

Also ds advised to eat a soft diet for now. Just re read your post, the splinting was painless and involved glueing a wire to the strong teeth either side of the wobbly tooth. I think it was the stuff they use for fillings, but that was it there was no drilling or anything

Thanks for this CJJ. I hope it all works out okay for you ds. My friends dentist was a little more reassuring than yours. Several have been splinted as a precaution but dentist said they weren't too bad. She's going back in a week and will be eating dinner with a straw until then!

I guess it's a waiting game what will happen but have some hope she'll be okay.

Cooper18

**professor~yaffle** wrote: »

That's terrible
Obviously we don't know the details, but no-one should have to be in fear of being assaulted at work. Why wouldn't she be able to report what sounds like quite a serious assault.

Because that's not the done thing in the NHS despite what hospital managers would have you think. I have personally witnessed much worse assaults than what my friend took last night and have heard those staff members being told that the police were not to be involved. Everyone is too afraid for their jobs these days to step out of line.