What is a Dental Emergency and what should I do?
What is a Dental Emergency?
A dental emergency is any situation that calls for professional attention right away – such as a knocked-out tooth, broken tooth, severe dental pain, impaired braces or dentures or anything else that just doesn’t feel quite right in your mouth. It’s scary when something suddenly goes wrong with your oral health, but there is no reason to panic when you know what to do and who to call.
What are the most common Dental Emergencies?
1. Tooth Injury
Any trauma to a tooth or the entire jaw classifies as a tooth injury. An injury may cause the tooth to be loosened up or even become removed from its normal position. Immediately seek help. Naples Dental and Implant Center dentists will treat your tooth injury within 24 hours to restore the tooth or teeth to the normal state of the tooth before the injury. Most dentists will recommend that you don’t try to fix it on your own in order to avoid further damage.
2. Severe Toothache
Toothaches that are unbearable should not be ignored. They usually signal serious problems like infection or decay. Depending on the toothache, rinsing with either cold or warm water can temporarily help. Over the counter painkillers are recommended until you can schedule an appointment with your Local Emergency Dentist
3. Knocked-out tooth
If you have a knocked-out tooth due to some trauma or accident, you have little time to waste. The tooth can be re-fixed to its socket but only if it receives emergency care within 2 hours of being knocked out. When faced with this dental emergency, gently rinsing the tooth in saline or salty water to remove any visible debris or blood is the first thing you should do. If you do not have saline available, put the tooth in small container filled with saliva and then call 239-234-5284 Immediately!
4. Impaired braces
If a wire in your braces has broken or come loose, it may poke and scrape your gums, cheeks or tongue. This calls for seeking emergency dental services with a dentist near you. As a temporary measure, you can try covering the wire end with a piece of gauze or a small cotton ball. Once you stop the wire from causing any further damage, schedule an emergency appointment as soon as possible.
5. Abscess Tooth
Notice a painful swelling filled with pus on your gum? It could be an abscess, which is an infection that attacks a tooth’s root or the space between the gums and teeth. Leaving the infection untreated can cause it to severely damage surrounding tissue on your teeth and even spread to rest of the body. Get an emergency dental appointment immediately without wasting time.
6. Cracked, Broken or chipped tooth
Small cracks in the tooth can be fixed with filling. More serious cases may require procedures like a tooth extraction or root canal therapy. At any rate, attend to the damaged tooth as soon as possible because it may lead to bacteria penetration into the inner tooth chamber thus causing infection. Schedule an appointment with an Emergency Dental Professional as soon as you can.
7. Lost restorations like crowns or fillings
If your restorations like crowns, bridges, fillings, etc. have fallen out of place, then you’ll need an emergency dental professional to fix them back to their original state.
Can a Dental Emergency wait?
In some cases, the answer to this is yes. If you are not in a great deal of pain and its not an infection or a knocked out tooth, waiting for a couple days probably wont cause that much more of a problem, but it's not recommended. If you feel pain, that's your body telling you that something is very wrong and it needs to be addressed. Pain medication only masks the issue, it doesn't fix it.
Naples Dental and Implant Center offers Same-Day Emergency Dental Care. Even if you don't have an appointment, even if you already have a routine doctor for your dental needs, even if you are just visiting town, call 239-234-5284 and our doctors will make time to address your emergency and set your mind at ease.