A few days ago, the top of my tooth
broke off. My dentist told me it was a fairly uncommon
dental disorderish thing called
internal resorption. Since it was
uncommon, I did I search on
E2 on the
chance that it was not
noded.
Lo and behold, it wasn't! I decided to contribute some knowledge (that wasn't even on
britannica.com!) to this lovely project.
Like I said,
internal resorption is a somewhat rare dental
occurrence (my dentist sees about one case per year). It begins with largely
unknown causes. Most
experts believe it to be due to
inflamed tooth pulp tissue or a
benign pulp
tumor. NOTE: It is not caused by
bacterial decay, and even good
oral hygiene doesn't prevent it. It causes
resorption inside the tooth - the tooth's
internal surfaces begin to dissolve and be absorbed back into the body. Unfortunately, it will usually make a small or no difference to the
appearance of the tooth. It is for this reason that
internal resorption will often not be caught until a piece of the
enamel breaks off. It will also show up on routine
X-rays. However, the tooth can be corrected by artificially filling in the inside of the tooth, then allowing to body to
recalcify itself naturally. In a more
serious cause, a
root canal and/or
artificial crown may be required. In my case, the tooth had to be
extracted after attempts to
coax it into
recalcification failed.
Columbia University: http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu:8000/oralpath/op/OP-026IT.html