Apr 06, 2023

Emergency Dentistry: How to Determine Whether Your Tooth Needs Emergency Attention?

Dental emergencies can leave worried about locating a dentist when none may be available because they often make an appearance when least expected. In addition, dental emergencies are mysterious because you will find it challenging to determine whether you have a genuine dental situation needing help from the emergency dentist near you or you can wait until you can contact your regular dentist for an urgent care appointment.

Most dental emergencies, except for knocked-out teeth and a dental abscess, can wait until you can see your regular dentist for attention. However, you must learn how to distinguish between a genuine dental emergency and a situation where you can consider receiving treatment during the day during regular business hours.

This article will discuss dental situations that need prompt treatment and problems that can wait for at least a day until you can see the dentist 60617 by scheduling an urgent care appointment.

Dental Situations That Are Simple Emergencies but Aren’t

  • Chipped and Cracked Teeth: Chipping and cracking teeth can occur when biting complex foods, using teeth to open packages, problems like bruxism causing you to grind and clench your teeth, and during childbirth. While the damaged teeth need attention from the dentist, you don’t have to rush to an emergency dentist for attention. Chipped or cracked teeth are best restored at the earliest from your dentist to ensure your mouth bacteria don’t penetrate them to create infections. However, you can wait until the daytime to receive the treatment when your regular dentist can quickly restore the tooth with tooth-colored fillings, making them appear new.
  • Toothaches: if you develop a toothache soon after dinner, it is not a reason to start researching for emergency dentists in your location. Instead, you must realize the pain can emanate from food particles trapped between your teeth, easily removable by brushing and flossing. However, if you have an excruciating toothache with temperature sensitivity, fever, and chills, it is a reason to seek help from the emergency dentist nearby because it might indicate a severe infection in your tooth and suggest appropriate treatment for the pain. Dentists diagnose the cause of the discomfort by taking x-rays to detect conditions and, if noticed, provide antibiotics and painkillers to help manage the discomfort and suggest seeking help from your regular dentist to receive a root canal.
  • Bleeding Gums: Bleeding gums often indicate the presence of advanced periodontal disease that results in bleeding after brushing or flossing. Periodontal disease loosens your teeth because they lose support from the jawbone and eventually become vulnerable to falling out. Therefore, receiving immediate treatment for advanced dental disease is crucial to control the bleeding and receive the treatment needed to prevent the condition’s progress.
  • Knocked-out Teeth: If you have a knockout tooth in your hand instead of your mouth is a genuine emergency that needs prompt attention from an emergency dentist or any other dental professional within 30 minutes. Your best chance of saving your natural tooth is to reach the dentist’s office within the mentioned timespan to have the tooth splinted to the neighboring teeth. When confronting a situation with a knocked-out tooth, you must aim to reach the dentist’s office with the tooth in your possession kept in a moist condition for best results. Failure to contact the dentist office near you for immediate placement of the tooth in your hand in its socket results in needing replacement solutions for it at high prices.
  • Dental Abscess: Dental abscesses occur near your tooth roots as an infection causing excruciating pain and often result from untreated gum disease or damage to a tooth without treatment, making it vulnerable to infections. Dental abscesses are life-threatening, making an emergency treatment from a dentist essential because you may require minor surgery to drain the infection besides antibiotics to deal with excess bacteria left over in your mouth from the condition.

Besides the above, you may also confront situations like broken fillings, crowns, or other restorations. Although they need attention from your dentist without delay, they are not dental emergencies and can wait until you can schedule an urgent care appointment to receive essential treatment for the condition that affects your teeth. However, genuine dental emergencies can result in the loss of teeth or threaten your life to make most dental situations harmless besides causing unnecessary stress because they result from the lack of knowledge or dental neglect.

Dental situations, whether emergencies or not, need attention from dentists. While most dental emergencies are not life-threatening, it helps if you receive attention for the problem you confront from Family Dental Care — Chicago, welcoming patients and treating them on arrival at their practice. Therefore, if facing a dental situation without knowledge about whether it is an emergency, kindly contact this facility for information and receive an appointment to see them at the earliest for treatment.

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