Handling Dental Emergencies

Dental emergencies are like most emergencies in that they never happen at a convenient time, they are always stressful, and it doesn’t matter how old you are, they are scary. However, having a plan for handling dental emergencies before they occur is one way to ensure that you will make the proper decisions when they count.
A knocked out tooth is considered to be the most traumatic dental emergency, especially for adults. Yet there are others that tend to get people into more trouble:

• A cracked or broken tooth
• A damaged dental bridge or crown
• A lost filling
• An infection or abscess around a tooth
• An injured jaw
• Dental bleeding
• Swelling inside the mouth
• Tooth pain
• Tooth sensitivity
People often find themselves in a great deal of trouble from these situations simply because they do not categorize them as emergencies. They often let these issues fester, trying to ignore them, until they become so severe that they cause extreme oral health concerns. The truth of the matter is, any dental concern should be treated as an emergency and brought to your dentist’s attention right away in order to prevent the need for drastic intervention. While these issue may not need immediate attention, they do need to be evaluated within just a few days in order to prevent more invasive issues from occurring.
Of course, a knocked out tooth is an emergency that requires the intervention from your dentist immediately. All teeth are connected to their lifeline through their tooth roots which are directly connected to the body’s blood supply. A tooth that is knocked out has been severed from its lifeline, and reconnection must be made immediately if saving the tooth is at all possible. If you are unable to gently place your knocked out tooth back in its socket, keep it moist in a small amount of milk or your saliva and go to the dentist right away.
At Heritage Dental we are here for you in all types of dental emergencies.