It normally takes about six weeks to eight weeks. There’s actually a free website that we dentists use as a reference because the trauma guideline we have to use the current guidelines which are based on research. There’s a website that we always refer to called dentaltraumaguide.org, where you can actually see that there are different protocols for how to manage different types of injuries. They’re generally six to eight weeks.
The physiology is that for a successful reattachment of the tooth to the bone, the periodontal ligament has to reform. You can see that clinically by how loose the tooth is, so the tooth should go back to physiologic mobility. All our teeth have mobility, the only things that don’t have mobility are dental implants or an ankylosed tooth. It should go back to being normal like the other teeth and from the x-ray, it should look normal as well. You have to satisfy both criteria.
There are very clear guidelines to follow up for dental traumas, which is good. It helps dentists decide when we have to see the patient because usually for patients who have either loosened or knocked out tooth completely, we have to splint the tooth because if we just put it back on the same day it’s going to wiggling around and you don’t want it to move while it’s healing. So we still have to splint it, but the decision on when to take the splint out and all that, there are pretty specific guidelines.
