Cracked or broken dental fillings are never a pleasant experience. When fillings break or pop out, they are not considered a dental emergency. However, it is crucial that you receive treatment for the affected as soon as possible because the decay beneath the filling can spread and worsen, resulting in infections. Unfortunately, if you are in severe pain in the affected tooth, you may have a dental emergency needing treatment immediately from the emergency dentist near you.
Dental problems or damaged teeth that remain unresolved adversely impact your overall oral health, making it essential to seek treatment as soon as possible before the condition aggravates into an emergency. Experienced dentists can help alleviate the pain and discomfort from a cracked or loose filling at their office when you visit them.
This article looks at cracked and loose fillings giving you information on why you must seek an urgent care appointment with a dentist near you for the condition and why. Kindly continue reading for more details.
Dental Emergencies Defined
Generally, dental emergencies are situations involving facial bone trauma, uncontrolled bleeding, knocked-out teeth, et cetera. Urgent dental care is needed urgently. The following are some familiar dental emergencies. They are an abscessed tooth, fractured jaw lines or gum line injury, partially or fully dislodged tooth, and lost or broken fillings.
What Are Dental Fillings?
Dental fillings help restore tooth structure lost due to decay. For example, when treating cavities, the dentist in Calumet city removes the decayed portion of the affected tooth before cleaning and disinfecting it and prepares to fill the area with the appropriate dental filling material. Fillings also help repair broken and cracked teeth or even teeth affected by enamel erosion because of bruxism.
Currently, various filling materials help replace lost tooth structures from decay. Depending on the severity of the pollution and the tooth’s location, the dentist might recommend filling the teeth with gold or silver amalgam or tooth-colored composite resin fillings. After the dentist removes the decayed area and cleans the tooth, they place the dental filler. Tooth-colored fillings need multi-layering and trimming of excess material besides polishing of the final restoration by the dentist.
Is a Broken Tooth Filling a Dental Emergency?
Dental fillers are durable and expected to remain in your teeth for nearly a decade. However, they can crack or fall out from the wear and tear they endure from eating, chewing, drinking, grinding, or clenching your teeth. These activities can result in a broken filling, making it essential to seek treatment for the problem as soon as possible. Getting treatment early helps prevent the onset of a dental emergency requiring intensive treatments like root canals and tooth extractions, besides getting replacement teeth at considerable expenditure. Generally, it would help if you had prompt treatment for the broken filling to alleviate bleeding and severe pain and save your tooth. However, it isn’t a dental emergency, although it requires treatment urgently.
Whether you confront the challenges mentioned above or not from the broken tooth filling, it is crucial to schedule an appointment with a dental professional at the earliest to ensure you preserve the integrity of your tooth and its presence in your mouth as best as possible. The reason for getting prompt treatment is because the bacteria that decayed your tooth can penetrate the gap left by the cracked or broken filling resulting in further deterioration in the tooth if not treated soon.
You can consider fixing the broken filling using DIY methods, but you will not succeed. However, you can adopt a few steps at home to minimize pain and discomfort while waiting for your urgent care appointment to fix your tooth. For example, you can consider taking OTC painkillers, using saltwater rinses and cold compresses to alleviate pain and swelling, and searching for a temporary dental filler available in drugstores in your location.
The Calumet city dentist sets aside time from their hectic schedules to attend to patients arriving with dental situations resulting in broken or cracked fillings. Even if you find their office closed, you can listen to the instructions on the answering phone to determine what you must do while waiting for urgent care. If you have a dental situation with a cracked tooth filling, contact the office of the Calumet city dentist for instructions without considering your problem as an emergency because it merely needs urgent care.
Family Dental Care — Calumet City welcome many patients with cracked or broken fillings, treating them upon arrival because they set time aside for urgent care appointments. Kindly visit them if you have a similar concern to get your tooth restored immediately upon arrival.
