Knocked-out tooth: the 60 minutes that decide everything

A completely knocked-out adult tooth (the medical word is avulsed) is one of the few true minutes-matter dental emergencies. Reimplanted within 30–60 minutes, it has a good chance of reattaching and lasting years. After two hours dry, the odds drop close to zero. Here’s the protocol — worth reading once now, because you won’t have time to Google it later.

The four steps

1. Find the tooth and pick it up by the crown — the white chewing part. Never touch or scrub the root; the fibers on it are what reattach.
2. If dirty, rinse for a few seconds with milk or saline. Not tap water for longer than a second or two, no soap, no scrubbing, no wrapping in tissue (dry is the enemy).
3. Put it back in the socket if you can. Face it the right way and press gently until level with its neighbors, then bite softly on a piece of cloth. It sounds terrifying; it’s the single best thing you can do.
4. Can’t reimplant? Store it in milk — or, for an adult, tucked inside the cheek. Then get to a dentist immediately. Call us on the way: +359 2 123 4567.

What about baby teeth?

Do not reimplant baby teeth — it can damage the adult tooth developing underneath. Still call us the same day: we need to check nothing else was injured and that no fragments remain.

Chipped or loosened, but still in place?

Less urgent, still same-day. Keep any broken fragment in milk (we can often bond it back invisibly). If the tooth is pushed out of position, don’t force it back — bite gently on gauze and come in.

The prevention paragraph nobody follows

If you (or your kids) play contact sports: a custom mouthguard costs less than a single reimplantation procedure and prevents most of these emergencies entirely. Off-the-shelf boil-and-bite guards are better than nothing; custom ones actually get worn.

Save our number now — emergencies don’t wait for business hours, and quick, correct first aid is often the difference between keeping and losing the tooth.