How to Recognize You Have a Dental Emergency?

How to Recognize You Have a Dental Emergency?

Oct 03, 2022

Dental emergencies occur at any time of the day or night. Therefore, staying prepared for such occurrences is ideal. Unfortunately, it is challenging to determine when you might experience a dental situation requiring you to visit the dental office near me, seeking prompt attention.

When Should You See an Emergency Dentist?

Whether you confront a dental situation in the morning or beyond office hours, you must prioritize getting treatment for the condition as soon as possible instead of delaying treatment until you can get to your regular dental care provider. However, some situations require you to seek remedies within a limited period. Therefore in such cases, you must prefer attention from an emergency dentist instead of considering lower costs by visiting your regular dentist because it might make you vulnerable to receiving intensive treatments costing thousands of dollars.

What Can Cause a Dental Emergency?

Many situations can aggravate a dental emergency without you realizing how or why it occurred. For example, even a minor toothache requires attention from a dentist, whether it is an emergency or not. On the other hand, you might experience a dental situation when moving around in public due to accidents or impacts on your mouth or experience pain in a specific tooth with severe tooth decay that you ignored even after receiving advice from your dentist that the tooth needs restoration with a dental filling.

Occasionally, you might develop pain in the jaw when opening and closing your mouth and think it is a minor discomfort. However, if the pain affects your quality of life, it might indicate problems with your temporomandibular joint connecting your lower mandible to your skull. Although these disorders are not life-threatening, they undoubtedly indicate the need to receive treatment from a dental professional to prevent the discomfort from aggravating and needing long-term treatment.

If you do not have information on recognizing a dental emergency, here are a few signs proving you need treatment from an emergency dentist as soon as possible.

Accidental Tooth Loss

Having a tooth knocked accidentally is never a good sign. However, if you want to preserve your natural tooth, you must reach emergency dental care in Gilbert within 30 minutes with the knocked-out tooth in your possession maintained in moist condition. Your best chances of avoiding the need to search for replacement solutions for the tooth lie in receiving treatment from the emergency dentist who will splint the knocked-out tooth to the adjacent teeth allowing its roots to reattach in approximately two months. After you have your natural tooth splinted, you must visit your regular dentist frequently to ensure its roots are reattaching and functioning as usual.

Swelling in the Mouth

Swelling in the mouth is a sign of infection that might result from untreated tooth decay expanding to your dental pulp. The swelling might include a dental abscess near the roots of your teeth with pus oozing out and leaving a foul odor in your mouth. In addition, the swelling might radiate to your face, gums, and lymph nodes. Untreated infections spread through your bloodstream to your body, causing severe health problems. In such situations, you must understand the swelling indicates a life-threatening condition that requires immediate attention from the dentist in Gilbert, AZ, to eradicate the infection in your tooth to prevent severe complications.

When you visit the Gilbert dentist, they will likely x-ray your tooth to determine how much damage it has incurred. While they will likely provide painkillers and antibiotics to help you manage the discomfort and control the infection, they will also recommend undergoing emergency root canal treatment to remove the infected dental pulp from within your tooth. If you refuse or decide to delay the treatment, you might have to get the tooth extracted and seek replacement solutions.

Cracked or Broken Teeth

The severity and location of a cracked or broken tooth determine what actions an emergency dentist will adopt. Dentists make all efforts to save your tooth so long as you receive treatment in a timely fashion. If the crack is minor and not causing severe pain or bleeding, the dentist might restore it using the available treatment options. Unfortunately, if the damage expands below the gum line, an extraction might be the best option to prevent complications later.

Whenever experiencing any discomfort in your mouth, whether from a toothache, swelling in the mouth, bleeding from your gums, et cetera, it is a sign of an emergency needing treatment immediately from a dental professional nearby to preserve the tooth or prevent unnecessary complications. Therefore you can either remain in control of your oral health by maintaining good dental hygiene and seeing your dentist frequently for exams and cleanings, besides evaluations of any situations that might aggravate into emergencies. Unfortunately, if you confront an unexpected dental problem reaching out to Coral Pointe Dental & Orthodontics and seeking a remedy is a better option than enduring severe pain and stress as soon as possible.

Coral Pointe Dental and Orthodontics
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