Facial Trauma: What Is It, What Are the Causes, And How Is It Treated?
Have you been in an accident or a sports mishap that has caused trauma to your face? If your answer is yes, then you should reach out to our Oral Surgeon in Brookline, MA. In most scenarios, facial trauma can be a devastating problem. The nature of these injuries not only affects you physically but emotionally as well.
Facial trauma is trauma that affects the facial region. It is a prevalent injury that has landed over three million people in the hospital every year. At times, facial trauma can be accompanied by life-threatening symptoms such as airway obstruction, shock, excessive bleeding, and brain injury.
This is why the treatment of facial trauma in Brookline requires an experienced maxillofacial and Oral Surgeon in Brookline, MA. The treatment given is both a science andart since the care you receive will affect your long-term appearance and function.
Facial Trauma, In a Nutshell
Technically, facial trauma is also referred to as maxillofacial injuries. These injuries may affect the face, mouth, and jaw. In most scenarios, the kinds of injuries involved in facial trauma are typically categorized as follows:
- Knocked out (avulsed) teeth. These are common occurrences when you experience facial trauma. Typically, if you get to our Oral Surgeon quickly enough, the tooth or teeth can be saved.
- Special regions. In this case, the injuries are to the nerves in the eyes, salivary glands, and face.
- Soft tissue injuries. These refer to lacerations to your skin and gum or intraoral trauma.
- Bony injuries. These are injuries that involve your whole face, including fractured jaw bones, palates, cheekbones, eye sockets, and noses.
Since these injuries affect vital areas that control eating, breathing, speaking, appearance, and seeing, seeking immediate medical attention is your best bet if you want to recover properly.
What Are the Causes of Facial Trauma?
Although there are protective measures that you can undertake to reduce the risks of being in an accident, injury is something that isn’t totally unavoidable. Here are some ways that you could get hurt:
- Accidents at home or in the workplace
- Automobile accidents
- Sports mishaps
- Interpersonal or domestic violence
What Are Some of the Symptoms of Facial Trauma?
In most cases, after experiencing facial trauma, you may experience the following symptoms:
- Double vision
- Bruising or swelling around the eyes
- Uneven or deformed facial bones
- Changes in how your face feels
- Missing teeth
- Problems breathing through the nose because of bleeding and swelling
Why Is Facial Reconstruction Essential?
Besides the obvious aesthetic reasons for repairing any damage to your facial structure, there are a host of serious dental and health concerns that make seeking expert help a priority. This is because your respiration, swallowing, or speech could be affected.
If these issues aren’t resolved promptly, then the following can happen:
- Poor smile aesthetics. Missing, chipped, or broken teeth are often unsightly.
- Loss of functionality. Missing or loose teeth can affect how you eat or speak.
- Jaw or bite irregularities. Facial trauma can lead to poor alignment, which can cause chronic pain, teeth wear, and other complications.
What Does Facial Trauma Treatment Involve?
Facial trauma treatment is complicated since it involves bleeding control, airway control, and much more. Hence the reason why you need an expert maxillofacial and Oral Surgeon in Brookline, MA, who has a combination of surgical and dental training.
Typically, if you have soft tissue injuries, these can be resolved by suturing. This is done with a lot of care since your facial nerves, salivary ducts, salivary glands, and other sensitive structures have to be carefully maneuvered.
If you have any fractures either to the jaw or face, our surgeon will deal with themsimilar to fractures in other body parts. This might mean that you undergo jaw reconstruction.
If there is a severe dental injury, you might need dental reconstruction. Also, teeth replacement can be done if you have missing teeth. All this can be done to repair or rebuild damaged teeth.
Facial trauma cannot be taken lightly. For this reason, if you or anyone you know has undergone facial trauma, contact our surgeon at Brookline Oral Surgery Group.