Chrissy Teigen says she’s only eating soup and mashed potatoes after losing 4 teeth in a fruit roll-up mishap

• Chrissy Teigen has lost not one, but four teeth while eating a fruit roll-up.
• She previously told a fan that while they were temporary caps, she loved them like real teeth.
• An orthodontist told Insider that the best way to avoid losing caps is routine dental care.
• Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Chrissy Teigen’s dental injuries from a fruit roll-up mishap may have been more extensive than previously reported. She didn’t lose one tooth while enjoying her snack – it was actually four. 

On January 21, Teigen shared in a Twitter video that she’d lost a tooth while eating candy. Teigen clarified in a follow-up tweet that it was actually a cap but that she “loved him like he was a real tooth.”

More recently, during an appearance on “The Ellen Show” on Monday, Teigen told Ellen DeGeneres that she’d lost multiple temporary caps in the “bubble of inauguration.” Teigen was in Washington, DC with her husband John Legend, and their two young children for the US presidential inauguration celebration at the time.

“What were you doing that you lost your teeth?” DeGeneres asked Teigen.

“In the bubble, there was only one thing you could do. And that was, go to CVS,” Teigen said.

"They had all this Valentine's Day stuff so I bought mini fruit roll-ups and I had one bite of one and then this one came off," Teigen continued pointing at the missing tooth. 

"You honestly have no idea how important your teeth are until they're gone," she added.

Teigen told DeGeneres that she's lost teeth in all four corners of her mouth and that she's having trouble eating solids. For the next 10 days, Teigen says her diet consists of mashed potatoes and soup. 

A cap, also known as a dental crown, is a tooth-shaped covering placed over teeth that might have become damaged over time or because of some kind of injury. 

According to experts, Teigen's mishap is both easy to avoid and manageable 

"People should maintain their routine dental care, including their routine visits to the dentist, so any early sign of a loose crown can be immediately dealt with," Dr. Kami Hoss, an orthodontist based in California, told Insider. 

Dr. Angela Abernathy, a dentist with Boutique Smiles of Manhattan, told Insider that "the absolute best thing to do" to prevent losing a crown is "to avoid eating anything extremely sticky."

"However, if you can't resist the urge, enjoy it on the opposite side. If you have multiple crowns or veneers, just avoid the sticky food and candy," Abernathy said. 

If you do find yourself in Teigen's situation, don't try any DIY solutions, particularly those involving superglue, Hoss warns.

"As a general rule, people should avoid doing any DIY procedures to glue the crown back on," Hoss said. "I've seen people using superglue to bond their crowns back."

He added that superglue is toxic and can create problems down the road for the dentist who has to more permanently fix the crown.

Abernathy recommends using an over-the-counter product called Dentemp which can hold the cap in place until you have a chance to see a doctor. She added that it can be found in most pharmacies.

Around the same time as her appearance on "The Ellen Show," Teigen shared photos of herself in a dental office, hopefully getting her lost caps fixed.