Restorative Dental Emergencies: What to Do When a Crown, Bridge, Veneer, Implant Crown, Denture or Front Tooth Breaks

Practice clinician: Gerald M. Marlin, DMD, MSD, prosthodontist, Elite Prosthetic Dentistry, Friendship Heights, Washington, DC. Last updated October 30, 2026.

When existing dental work breaks, what you do in the first hour matters more than most people realize, and the right place to go is not always obvious. This hub covers the rules that apply to every restorative emergency, the signs that belong in the emergency room instead, how Elite Prosthetic Dentistry handles an emergency call, and why an emergency so often reveals a larger pattern. Six situation pages follow, one for each kind of failure.

Find Your Situation

• My crown came off or broke
• My bridge is loose, broken or failing
• I chipped, cracked or knocked out a front tooth
• A veneer came off or chipped before an event
• My implant crown is loose or fell off
• My denture broke, or my snap-in denture will not seat

Each page covers what to do in the next hour, when the emergency room is the right place instead, what can wait until office hours, what the visit involves, why it happened, and what the emergency often reveals.

The First-Hour Rules for Every Restorative Emergency

1. Keep every piece. The crown, the veneer, the fragment of tooth, the denture tooth, the abutment screw. Rinse, dry, and put it in a container, not a tissue. A piece in hand is often reusable and always informative.
2. No household glue. Superglue and repair kits damage the restoration and the tooth and often make proper repair impossible. Pharmacy temporary dental cement is acceptable only for an intact crown that seats fully without force, and only until the visit.
3. Do not force anything. A crown that will not seat, a bridge attached at one end, an implant crown that moves, a snap-in denture that will not click: forcing them causes damage that is harder to undo than the original problem.
4. Protect the area. Chew on the other side. Keep cold away from an exposed tooth. Cover a sharp edge with orthodontic wax from a pharmacy. Keep the area clean with gentle brushing.
5. Manage discomfort sensibly. Over-the-counter pain relief as directed on the label and as approved by your physician. Do not place aspirin against the gum.
6. Call. During office hours, (202) 244-2101; patients are triaged by urgency and same-day visits are arranged when the schedule allows. After hours, follow the voicemail prompts for urgent care instructions.

A knocked-out tooth is the one exception to “it can wait”: it has a chance of being saved only if it is handled correctly and seen within the hour. The front tooth page explains exactly what to do.

When the Emergency Room Is the Right Place Instead

Hospital emergency departments manage medical emergencies; they generally do not repair teeth or dental work. Go to the emergency room, or call 911, for:

• Difficulty breathing or swallowing.
• Facial swelling that is spreading, particularly toward the eye, under the jaw or into the neck.
• Fever together with facial swelling.
• Bleeding that cannot be controlled with firm pressure.
• Trauma to the face or jaw, a suspected jaw fracture, or a head injury with the dental injury.
• Loss of consciousness at the time of the injury.

Tell the office afterward so the dental side can be followed up. A broken crown, bridge, veneer or denture with none of these signs is a dental office problem, not a hospital one.

How Elite Prosthetic Dentistry Handles an Emergency Call

The office is open Monday through Thursday from 8 to 5 and Friday from 8 to 2, at 4400 Jenifer Street NW, Suite 220, in Friendship Heights, one block from the Friendship Heights Metro, with parking in the building. During those hours, call (202) 244-2101 and describe what happened; the team triages calls by urgency and arranges same-day visits when the schedule allows. After hours and on weekends, the voicemail prompts give urgent care instructions. The practice does not promise a same-day visit in every case, and it will say so on the phone rather than leave a patient waiting.

The visit treats the immediate problem: recementing, repairing, smoothing, replacing a component, fitting a provisional. Because the practice has operated its own laboratory on site since 1985, many repairs and provisionals that would otherwise wait on an outside laboratory can be done during the visit or soon after; the timing is confirmed once the problem has been examined. Dr. Gerald M. Marlin evaluates the broken piece together with the tooth or implant beneath it and the bite that loaded it, because fixing the piece without understanding why it failed is how the same emergency happens again.

What an Emergency Often Reveals

Dental work placed at the same time ages under the same conditions. The crown that came off is usually one of several of the same age; the bridge that loosened has supporting teeth that have been working harder for years; the veneer that chipped was bitten the same way as the ones beside it. The emergency visit is a good moment to examine the rest: X-rays, probing of margins, a check of the bite, and a classification of each restoration as sound, monitor, plan to replace, or replace now. Patients who do this plan the replacement of aging dentistry on their own schedule rather than one emergency at a time. Our guides on signs your dental work is wearing out and when to replace old crowns and bridges explain the judgment; patients come to us for both comprehensive reconstruction and proactive replacement of aging dentistry, and the second often begins with a phone call about the first.

When Another Setting Fits Better

A patient with a regular general dentist who can see them promptly is often best served there for a simple recement. The emergency room is the right place for the medical signs listed above. A knocked-out tooth should go to whichever dental office can see the patient within the hour. A patient whose implants were placed elsewhere and who can reach that surgeon should call them first about a moving implant; the practice sees patients who cannot. The practice will say on the phone when another route is faster.

Documented Cases

• Emergency repair of two fractured front teeth.
• Rapid repair of two fractured front teeth.
• Dental emergency solutions: how the practice approaches urgent restorative problems.
• Temporary crowns restore a patient’s smile in one day.
• A fractured filling that led to the discovery of generalized wear, a small emergency that revealed a larger pattern.

Related Reading

• Emergency dental care at Elite Prosthetic Dentistry
• Emergency contact and after-hours instructions
• Signs your dental work is wearing out
• When should old crowns and bridges be replaced?
• Warning signs after dental surgery: when to call
• All decision guides

Call the Office

During office hours, call (202) 244-2101 and describe what happened. After hours, follow the voicemail prompts for urgent care instructions. For the signs listed under the emergency room, go there first. For a non-urgent evaluation of dental work that has been repaired elsewhere, or of the restorations that have not yet failed, request an appointment or call (202) 244-2101.