Actions to Take If Confronting a Dental Emergency

What do you do when you or a family member confronts a dental situation at any time of the day or night? Instead of determining the reasons for the dental emergency, you panic and wonder how to help them alleviate the pain they experience or stop the bleeding from their mouth.

Dental emergencies are expected in 22 percent of Americans frequently. Different versions of dental emergencies make their appearance felt through toothaches, bleeding from the gums and soft tissues, chipped or broken teeth, broken orthodontics, loose crowns, lost fillings, et cetera. As dental emergencies generally occur in the mouth, you must ensure you see an expert qualified in dental anatomy and receive the treatment required before the situation aggravates. If you don’t receive treatment for a dental emergency from a dentist near you, there is a risk of severe damage to the teeth and gums.

Dental emergencies are challenging to determine and can cause confusion about whether you must seek treatment from an emergency dentist nearby or visit an emergency room. However, you must understand that treatment from a dentist is recommended instead of emergency rooms lacking the knowledge or the infrastructure essential to treat dental emergencies.

What Causes a Dental Emergency?

Many reasons can cause a dental emergency. However, the most common is negligence in caring for your teeth and gums and adopting harmful practices.

For example, you may experience bleeding from your teeth and gums when brushing and flossing to indicate you are affected by gum disease. Although the situation is not grim, you may need treatment from the emergency dentist in Central Northwest, Houston, TX, if the bleeding is excessive and not subsiding by applying gauze or cold compresses. Dentists know how to control the bleeding and even recommend treatment for the infection in your mouth that can aggravate silently to cause bone and tooth loss if left untreated.

Gum disease results from negligence because it is preventable by maintaining appropriate dental hygiene and getting six monthly exams and cleanings. Conversely, neglecting proper care essential for your teeth and gums results in a condition that needs lifelong treatment from dentists to manage it.

Sometimes you can chip or break a tooth when biting on hard foods. If you experience severe pain from the chip or crack with bleeding you need prompt treatment from an emergency dentist. Alternatively, if the tooth is not painful, you can wait 24 hours until you get to your regular dentist to fix the tooth with fillings or crowns as required.

What Measures Are Necessary during a Dental Emergency?

Dental emergencies are not similar and are unlike each other. The situation affecting you determines what measures are essential during a dental emergency. For example, if you have a dental abscess near your tooth roots, it indicates your tooth is infected from within, and the disease has spread to your jawbone to leave you with a life-threatening condition. The situation affecting you needs immediate treatment from an emergency dentist because it causes excruciating pain in the tooth besides temperature sensitivity, fever, chills, and other problems. To overcome the challenge you confront, you must visit a dentist to receive painkillers and antibiotics to alleviate pain and control the infection and even prepare yourself to receive the frightening but tooth-preserving root canal treatment that helps eradicate the condition within your tooth.

Occasionally you might become involved in an accident or altercation that leaves you with a knocked-out tooth. A tooth in the wrong place instead of your mouth requires treatment from the dentist on Antoine drive within 30 minutes if you intend to preserve it. Therefore if you are in a similar situation, you must maintain the tooth in a moist condition by placing it between your cheeks or a tiny milk container and heading to the dentist without wasting time. If you get to the dentist within 30 minutes, they can splint it to the adjacent teeth to allow its roots to attach in a couple of months. Timely treatment for a knocked-out tooth helps prevent searching for replacement options like implants or bridges to cover the void in your mouth.

Every dental emergency has a specific set of measures you must adopt to receive timely treatment and find relief from the pain to preserve your natural teeth. Therefore it helps if you research what dental emergencies are to learn the actions you must take if affected by one.

SND Family Dental Houston receives many patients confronting different versions of what they believe are dental emergencies. Consult the practice if you encounter a similar situation to receive treatment for the problem as soon as possible to preserve your natural teeth and oral health.