What Can Be Done During a Dental Emergency?

When you experience an oral injury or a dental problem, knowing if you need emergency care and if your dental insurance covers you is essential. Not all dental issues are emergencies. Some require immediate dental care, and some require a few deep breaths and patience.

A toothache, a tooth falling out, pain from a dental crown, or a chipped tooth could be serious dental issues but not emergencies, so it’s always advised to consider your options in advance. However, if it’s an emergency, you should visit or call your dentist immediately for treatment.

What is Dental Emergency?

A dental emergency is a tooth-related issue that offers immediate treatment. It’s anything but a dental routine. With dental emergencies, one needs immediate action to address the discomfort, severe pain, or trauma to their mouth that can cause bleeding and lacerations to their gums and fracture or dislodge teeth.

What to Do During a Dental Emergency

Knowing what to do when you or your child experience a dental emergency is good. Some of the dental emergencies you can encounter and how to handle them are discussed below.

Broken and Chipped Teeth

A broken or chipped tooth ruins your smile and also hurts. So first, you should rinse your mouth with warm water and apply a piece of gauze to the bleeding area. Then, ensure you use a cold compress face on the part closest to the chipped or broken teeth to help reduce swelling and relieve pain.

While seeking emergency care, your dentist in Humble will advise you to be conscious of biting down on crunchy and hard foods.

Knocked out tooth

As you can handle a cracked, broken, or chipped tooth, ensure you pick up the tooth by the crown and rinse off the dirty root. Otherwise, you should avoid removing and scrubbing attached tissue fragments.

Depending on your injury, you might be able to put the tooth back in place, but carefully avoid pushing it to its socket. If you can’t put back the tooth into the socket, put it in a small cup with water or milk with a salt pinch. This helps preserve the tooth in time for emergency restoration at your dentist’s office.

Toothache

Experiencing pain in your tooth is never a good sign. The pain can indicate different conditions, including tooth decay. And although some toothaches can be managed without emergency treatment, certain signs like swelling requires urgent attention. You should avoid turning to common remedies like taking painkillers such as aspirin because contact with the affected gum might burn the tissue.

Instead, you should apply a cold compress to your cheek and call the dental clinic near you for emergency treatment.

Lost Crown or Filling

Fillings and crowns help restore teeth that were previously damaged back to their normal function and appearance. So when they break, you need to get treated immediately by our emergency dentist in Humble to avoid reinfection or further damage. You should try fixing them temporarily while waiting for emergency care. For example, try sticking a sugarless gum into your cavity and restoring the tooth to avoid damaging it.

An Abscess

Infections in your mouth, especially in the space between the gums and teeth, are serious. When left untreated, they spread to the gum tissue, surrounding teeth, and the rest of your body. If you’re unsure if it’s an abscess, look for a painful pimple-like swollen part in your gums. Then, ensure you call or visit our dental office at Charm Dental in Humble for treatment and prevent worse oral health problems.

Broken Orthodontics

Dental braces are hard because they are designed to withstand daily wear and tear with eating, chewing, or talking. But even though they are hard, they can still break or stick out and poke the gums and cheeks. This causes discomfort and can slow down or reverse progress in straightening and aligning the teeth.

When this happens, you should try pushing the broken wire into a more comfortable position. If this is impossible, try covering the exposed end with orthodontic wax, a piece of gauze, or a small cotton ball. Please don’t cut the wire to avoid swallowing it, no matter how uncomfortable it is. Instead, ensure you visit an emergency dentist near you immediately.