What Can You Do During a Dental Emergency?

Dental emergencies tend to occur without warning, similar to other health issues. Knowing what you must do during dental emergencies helps to utilize every minute to lessen the severity of the problem. Whenever you incur any injury, you may know who to call and what to do to ensure you can move into action immediately. Some dental problems do not require prompt attention from a dentist. However, others like a dental abscess undoubtedly need emergency dental care for draining the infection and receiving medications to ensure the condition doesn’t spread. Therefore you need to recognize dental emergencies that require prompt attention and the ones that can wait for a couple of days until you can seek treatment from your regular dentist.

Various Types of Dental Emergencies

Loss of a Permanent Tooth

If you lose a permanent tooth, you must act fast if you don’t want to start searching for tooth replacement solutions:

1. Try to locate the missing tooth from your mouth.
2. If you find it pick it up by the crown without touching the roots.
3. Rinse the tooth in water and try placing it back in its socket.

If you fail, use a small container of milk for preservation and contact emergency dental services immediately for an appointment. Do not relax after you schedule your appointment but rush to the dental facility to get there within 30 minutes. You have the maximum period to get the tooth reinserted into its socket.

Severely Fractured Teeth

Often, mouth injuries result in a severely fractured tooth that can cause further infections in your mouth if you don’t consider it a dental emergency. Teeth with minor or significant fractures need treatments promptly because the bacteria in your mouth began penetrating the chips or fractures and may soon infect the dental pulp. Therefore severely fractured teeth need treatment from emergency dentistry either to seal the fractures or perform an emergency tooth extraction.

Painful Toothache

A severe toothache results from untreated infections developing into an abscess near the roots of your teeth. A dental abscess is life-threatening and can cause various health complications besides leaving you with tooth loss. First, you must visit an emergency dentist nearby to have the abscess drained and receive antibiotics to control the infection until you get to your regular dentist to undergo the expensive and fearsome root canal treatment.

Mouth Injuries

Mouth injuries also warrant prompt action. For example, if an impact has resulted in a jaw injury, you may have a distorted jawline. Therefore, you must keep your injured face as still as possible and get emergency assistance as soon as possible.

Who You Should Contact and Where to Go during Dental Emergencies?

The golden rule of managing dental emergencies is to contact your dentist to determine whether they provide emergency services. If the dental emergency affects you beyond office hours, you can call the after-hours emergency number of the emergency dentist. The answering service monitoring the call will take the information to relay it to the dentist to determine how they can assist you. In some cases, you may need assistance from an emergency room, while others may require help from a dentist or an oral surgeon. Therefore you must learn to recognize dental emergencies before you panic and run helter-skelter, wondering what you can do during such situations.

Besides impacts to your mouth causing jaw injuries and leaving it distorted, and needing help from an emergency room, do not consider visiting a regular emergency room for a dental emergency. Firstly emergency rooms are not authorized to treat dental issues. The best they can do is provide painkillers and a hefty bill before sending you to the nearest emergency dentist to seek further treatment. Therefore don’t waste your money and time on visits to a facility that does not deliver dental services.

What Was the Reason for Your Dental Emergency?

If your dental emergency resulted from a dental abscess, it indicates you aren’t maintaining your dental health in excellent condition. Dental abscesses result from untreated infections that you could easily have prevented. You may, on odd occasions, encounter problems with loose fillings, crowns, or bitten lips and cheeks. However, these aren’t emergencies and can wait until you can see your regular dentist. However, an excellent way to prevent dental issues from bothering you beyond office hours or on holidays is to maintain your dental health, excellently brushing and flossing as recommended by your dentist, and protecting your mouth from impacts if involved in sporting activity. Most importantly, you must avoid panicking whenever confronting a dental issue.

Take care of your teeth and mouth appropriately to keep them healthy and act appropriately if you or your family member encounters any dental problem. Working calmly helps you relieve the stress of the situation and get appropriate attention from a qualified professional.