A broken tooth can be anything from a small enamel chip to a deep crack that needs same-week treatment. Here's how to tell which one you have, what to do tonight, and how long you can safely wait.
Written and reviewed by an AHPRA-registered dentist.
Most chipped teeth can wait a few weeks; deeper breaks need a same-week dentist. The situations below need attention today.
Act today if any of the following are happening.
Most breaks fall into one of these. Severity rises as you go down the list.
A small piece of the hard outer layer has come off. The break looks white, the edge is rough but shallow. Usually cosmetic — wait a few weeks, book a routine visit. Worth doing because the rough edge collects plaque and the tooth weakens over time.
Goes through the enamel into the yellow layer beneath (dentine). Cold and sweet hurt — sometimes sharply — but the pain settles within seconds. This is the same mechanism behind ordinary tooth sensitivity to cold, hot, or sweet. Book within a week or two. Likely a filling at typical Australian fees.
Reaches close to the nerve. Cold or hot triggers severe pain that lingers 30+ seconds. Sometimes you can see a pink or red dot on the broken surface — that's the pulp itself. Needs same-day or next-day care to head off infection; likely a root canal at typical Australian fees followed by a crown to protect the tooth afterwards.
The tooth has split into two pieces. Pain on biting, the pieces move independently. Usually unsalvageable — extraction at typical Australian fees and, eventually, an implant or bridge. Same-day care; the dental emergencies in Australia guide covers where to go after hours.
These categories orient you — but telling a dentine fracture from a deep crack from the outside is genuinely difficult without imaging, even for dentists. Pain that "lingers a bit" can be category 2 or category 3, and the treatment is very different. If the answer matters (with a broken tooth it usually does), an extra read is worth it.
Not sure which kind you have?
That's the question askadent is built to answer. Send a photo and a short description; an AHPRA-registered Australian dentist replies within 24 hours with a plain-English read on what category your break is in — and a referral letter if you need it.
Send a photo — $25General guidance only. If the break is deep or painful, in-person care is the answer — this is what to do in the meantime.
These steps protect the tooth and your tongue while you arrange real care. None of them restore what's missing — a dentist still needs to seal, bond, or rebuild whatever broke off, and waiting too long can turn a filling into a root canal.
This is a different category — time-critical. Hold the tooth by the crown (the chewy part), not the root. Don't scrub. If you can, rinse briefly with milk or saline and place it back in the socket; otherwise store it in milk, saline, or inside the cheek. Don't use water. Get to a dentist or hospital ED within an hour if at all possible. The IADT dental trauma guidelines have detailed at-home instructions including what to do for baby teeth (different — don't reimplant) and partly displaced teeth.
If you're hours from a dentist and can't tell whether your break is "wait two weeks" or "drive in tomorrow", that's exactly the gap askadent is built for.
Send a few guided photos and a short description. An AHPRA-registered Australian dentist replies within 24 hours with a plain-English urgency rating and, if helpful, a referral letter you can take to an in-person dentist.
What it can't do: replace an in-person examination or imaging — and we can't definitively diagnose a deep crack from a photo. For knocked-out adult teeth, drive straight to the nearest dentist or hospital ED.
$25 AUD per case, full refund if we can't give you a useful assessment.
More on rural dental access in our options when there is no dentist in your town guide. If pain is the main thing rather than the visible break, our toothache pattern guide helps you read what's happening.
Send a photo. An AHPRA-registered Australian dentist will read what you've got and tell you whether it can wait or needs attention now.
Start a case — $25