Did your teeth fall out? Doctor explains why you should never expose them to water if you are going to the dentist: ‘Water rushes into…’

Believe it or not, you shouldn’t just wrap a bloody tooth if it fell out due to a fall or altercation when you go to the dentist. The tooth's ability to be successfully reinserted can be greatly impacted by how it is preserved during travel.

Dr Priyam Bordoloi clarified that a permanent tooth should not be transferred dry if it is totally displaced. Rather, until expert dental care is available, the tooth must be preserved in a suitable liquid to help protect the cells on its surface.

The knocked-out tooth can be transported by wrapping it in dry tissue, putting it in milk, storing it in an antiseptic solution, or submerging it in tap water. Milk is the best option among these since it prolongs the tooth's viability till the patient sees a dentist.


In another post, Dr Bordoloi explained that during a chat with a dentist friend, he learned that dropping a fallen tooth in a glass of cold milk is the best way to save it. This is because the root of our teeth is covered in dainty living cells that have to stay intact for the dentist to reattach it. If you wrap a tooth in a tissue, those cells dry up and die. Water makes the cells swell up and burst. Antiseptics can kill them on the spot.

Because milk has the ideal natural mix of fluids, carbohydrates, and salts, it is a saviour in this situation. Until you can get to the dentist's chair, it essentially replicates the interior of your own body, keeping those tiny root cells content and alive.


Commenting on the post, another doctor, Dr Fargo, wrote, "The part I’d want people to remember in the actual panic of the moment? Grab the tooth by the crown. Not the root.

Don’t scrub it. Don’t disinfect it. Don’t try to make it "clean". Those cells on the root are part of what gives that tooth a fighting chance.

Handle the top. Keep it wet. Get moving.