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Local Dentist Talks About Remedies For Tooth Trauma

By John McDevitt

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A toothache could ruin a vacation, and an area dentist offers remedies to prevent tooth trauma.

If you chip or break a tooth, or a filling falls out and you can't get to a dentist right away, use sugarless gum to fill-in or cover the tooth.

"Why do you need sugarless? Because you don't want the sugar to attack the healthy part of the teeth," explains Dr. Leonard Tau.

Dr. Tau (below), from the Pennsylvania Center for Dental Excellence in Northeast Philadelphia, says if you are doing physical activity use a mouth guard.

Dr. Leonard Tau
Dr. Leonard Tau

"Bike riding or skate boarding or even if you are in the ocean. If you're at the beach, if you are surfing or something, always wearing some sort of guard is the best way of protecting injury to your teeth," says Dr. Tau.

And for a toothache, he says rub clove oil around the problem area; it helps with inflammation.

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