Emergency dentistry is available to patients who have experienced a dental injury or accident, or are in severe dental pain and discomfort. The goal of emergency dental care is to get patients out of pain quickly and back to optimal oral health as soon as possible. Dentists will often leave openings in their schedules for same-day emergency appointments, and will sometimes be available after-hours and on weekends.
More than 5 million teeth are knocked out every year in both children and adults.
An unexpected dental injury can be extremely painful, but it’s important not to panic. Nearly every dental issue has a solution and can be treated by a dentist. So don’t worry! We can help.
If blood is present following an accident or injury, you can use sterile gauze and pressure to control the bleeding. The bleeding should slow within an hour.
Pain and swelling can be treated with an over-the-counter medication like ibuprofen or acetaminophen. Do not use aspirins that thin the blood as they will prevent clotting and may make it difficult to control bleeding. Applying an ice pack to the cheek near the affected area can also help relieve pain.
Give us a call as soon as you’ve regained control of your situation. We can help determine the severity of your dental injury, and get you in our office as soon as possible for prompt emergency care.
Same-day dental care ensures that you can resolve your dental emergency quickly and get the care you need from your dentist right away. Putting off treatment can put you at risk for more serious complications. For example, a broken tooth that could be easily treated with a dental crown might become infected and require a root canal if left untreated. Delaying treatment also forces you to deal with pain that you simply don’t need to live with.
The sooner you see a dentist for your dental emergency, the sooner you’ll be on your way to back to optimal dental health. We offer same-day care to ensure that you get the treatment you need when you need it.
We understand that emergencies don’t just happen from 9 to 5. We always have a team member on-call to help triage your emergency dental needs, no matter what time of day they occur. If a dental emergency strikes beyond our business hours, give us a call and one of our team members will be happy to help you in your time of need.
Depending on your issue, your dentist may suggest any number of treatments to get you back to normal. Dental crowns, for instance, are commonly used to treat broken, damaged, or seriously-decayed teeth. If you’ve been experiencing a severe or chronic toothache, an infection may be the culprit, and your dentist may recommend root canal therapy.
Other common procedures include tooth splinting, which is used to stabilize a loose or knocked-out tooth and allow it to heal. More rarely, tooth extractions may be required to remove seriously damaged teeth that cannot be treated with alternative methods of restorative care.
Putting a knocked out tooth in milk, not water, can preserve the root while you head to your emergency appointment.
First, recover your tooth. Grab it by the top (the crown) not the bottom (the root), as this will ensure you don’t damage the tooth further. You can rinse it with warm water, if necessary. Then, you’ll need to replace it in the socket or put it into a container of cold milk to keep it moist until you come in to see the dentist.
Don’t spend too much time trying to treat pain and discomfort. This is an extremely serious dental emergency, and your tooth must be replaced and splinted by your dentist within 1-2 hours to save it. Give us a call right away for immediate instructions, and come see our team ASAP to get the help you need now.
If possible, recover your dental work and put it in a plastic bag or container that you can bring with you to your appointment. Next, call us right away to schedule that appointment.
This is a serious dental emergency because losing a piece of dental work exposes vulnerable parts of your tooth to bacteria, which can cause infection, further decay or damage, and other complications. Get a same-day appointment, and you can restore your smile with a new filling, crown, or other restorative dental work.
A severe toothache that lasts 1-2 days or longer usually indicates a tooth infection, which can be a very serious dental emergency. You may need root canal therapy to restore your tooth and prevent it from dying.
Call us immediately to schedule an appointment. Until that appointment, you can use Orajel or a similar topical numbing product to numb the tooth, or take over-the-counter pain relievers. Applying an ice pack may also help with your discomfort until you can get treatment for your condition.
Even if the damage seems minor, call us for a same-day emergency appointment. Sometimes it’s difficult to know the severity of a chip, break or crack without a professional dental exam. A broken or cracked tooth can easily become infected if it’s not treated quickly. This can cause further and unnecessary complications.
Call us and come see our team as soon as you can. Your dentist will examine the tooth and determine the extent of the damage. From there, they can offer their best recommendations to repair and protect your smile.
A loose tooth after a dental injury is a serious emergency. Without proper care, the nerves supporting your tooth may die, or the tooth may fall out of your mouth entirely. You need to call our team immediately for a same-day appointment.
Once you’ve scheduled your appointment, avoid touching the loose tooth with your tongue or fingers. The less you move it around, the better. Once you get to our office, your dentist will splint and stabilize the tooth by attaching it to the adjacent teeth. This allows it to heal and re-attach to your gums.
In most cases, the answer is no. However, if you believe that your dental emergency is potentially life-threatening, then it is appropriate to go to the ER or urgent care. The reason the emergency room is not the best place to go for dental emergencies is that they are usually not properly equipped to treat dental issues and may not always have access to oral surgeons or dentists that can treat these problems.
If you are experiencing severe pain that is impacting your ability to breathe or swallow, you have uncontrollable bleeding, or tooth pain that is present alongside a fever of at least 101 degrees, or have suffered from severe trauma to the teeth and jaw, these are examples of serious emergencies that warrant a visit to the hospital.
However, if you are experiencing dental emergencies that are not life-threatening, such as severe tooth pain that is not impacting your ability to breathe or swallow, then the emergency room is not the proper place to get treatment. You will receive better diagnosis and treatment from an emergency dentist.
If you go to the hospital, they may not be able to treat your problem and will most likely turn you away after prescribing some pain medication and handing you a bill. This is why it is important to have access to an emergency dentist at all times. At Water Valley Dental, we are available for same-day appointments, after-hours, and on weekends.
If you have an emergency after hours, all you have to do is contact us and we will get you access to prompt medical treatment. We plan ahead of time for emergencies so we will always have someone on-call that can show up to treat you no matter what time of day or what day of the week it is.
We understand that emergencies often happen when we least expect it, which is why it’s so vital for a dental office to be available outside of traditional operating hours. The next time you experience a dental emergency, get in touch with us at Water Valley Dental to let us know you need an emergency appointment and we will advise you on what to do in the meantime until you can get here.
If left untreated, a tooth infection can spread to other parts of your body.
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