When was the last time you visited a dentist voluntarily? The unfortunate fact in dentistry is that many patients only visit the dentist when they have a dental problem. Worse, most of them wait until they have severe symptoms indicating dental emergencies before visiting a dental clinic near them.
What Is Emergency Dentistry?
It is an area of dentistry that focuses on offering urgent medical attention to patients with severe and urgent oral problems.
Emergency dentists near you exist, so you do not have to wait in line to see a dentist when you have an urgent oral problem.
How Will You Know You Have a Dental Emergency?
The line between a typical dental problem and a dental emergency is thin, making it difficult for many patients to differentiate them. As such, some of the pointers that are crucial for identifying an oral emergency are:
- The severity of the problem
- The intensity of your pain
- The potential risk of the rest of your oral cavity
- The degree of danger for both your oral and general body health
Once you can clear on the above factors, you can easily pinpoint a dental emergency. From there, you can identify the symptoms you have, which will also help indicate dental emergencies. Some of the symptoms patients have during dental emergencies include:
- Severe dental pain – you may be able to point out the root cause of the pain, but it may not always be obvious. Dental pain can be due to a toothache, jaw pain, or even pain in your gums.
- Bleeding – any type of bleeding in your mouth should be alarming. However, be more concerned if you have been bleeding for a prolonged period without healing. Bleeding can be a sign of gum disease, cancer, or an open wound on your mouth, all of which are dental emergencies.
- Swelling – when something is wrong in any part of your body, swelling is one of the typical responses of your immune system. Any unusual swelling in your mouth should get your attention. Be more alarmed if the swelling keeps spreading to other parts of your face and upper body.
- Crack, chip, or break on your tooth – while it could only translate to the damaged tooth structure, sometimes it can cause severe tooth pain and sensitivity due to nerve damage.
- Jaw lock – occurs when you have a problem with the connective tissue of the jawbone. Your mouth will regularly get stuck on the open mouth position. You may also experience other symptoms like pain when you chew or move your jaw, as well as weird sounds in your ears when you use your mouth.
- Affiliate body symptoms – while it may only be your ailing mouth, you may experience other symptoms in different parts of your body. Some of them include headaches, fatigue and muscle pain, sore throat, neck pain, to mention a few.
Common Dental Emergencies
At Family Dental Care – Calumet City, we have a list of potential oral emergencies that can help you figure out whether you need urgent care or not. The common dental emergencies in our dental clinics are:
- Knocked-out tooth or a partially dislodged tooth
- Fractured or broken jawbone
- Damaged oral appliance – for orthodontic devices like braces. It can also occur for dental crowns and fixed dentures.
- Severe toothache
- Severe dental decay
- Tooth abscess
- Periodontitis – an advanced stage of gum disease
- Objects stuck between your teeth
- Loose or lost tooth filling – without urgent care, it could compromise the health of the initially treated tooth.
Benefits of Emergency Dentistry
In most cases, seeking emergency care for your urgent dental problem will be a voluntary action, especially where intense pain is involved. However, if you still need convincing that emergency dentistry is worthwhile, consider the following benefits:
- Alleviating and treating pain – dentists for urgent oral problems do not only offer a temporary solution to your pain. Instead, they treat the root cause of your pain.
- Saving your natural teeth – if you make it to an emergency dental facility in time, a dentist has the chance to save your knocked-out tooth.
- Curbing progression of dental issues – unfortunately, in medicine, the longer you go untreated, the worse your condition gets. Emergency dentistry intervenes to ensure that your dental problem does not get worse than it already is.
