How Should You Deal with a Dental Emergency Quickly?

Accidents happen every day. You may find yourself with a dental emergency for one reason or another. Many factors can cause dental emergencies, including sports and car accidents, chewing nails and hard items, after-surgery complications, and much more. When you have a dental emergency, finding the necessary dental care is essential to relieve the symptoms and address the underlying condition. Ignoring dental emergencies can lead to severe and life-threatening complications

What is Considered a Dental Emergency?

Many dental problems may not be considered emergencies. For instance, if you’re experiencing a mild one-time toothache or mild bleeding after a tooth extraction, you don’t need to seek emergency care. Still, you should seek the right treatments for dental problems that aren’t emergencies. Unaddressed minor dental issues can worsen with time and lead to further complications.

Generally, a dental emergency is when a patient experiences severe oral discomfort and symptoms. Examples of dental emergencies would be a knocked-out tooth, infected abscess, unexplained bleeding, and severe toothache. If you’re experiencing these or similar dental issues, you should seek immediate dental care from an emergency dentist near you.

What are Common Causes of Dental Emergencies?

There are many causes of oral or dental emergencies. Car, bike, and sports accidents are the major causes of dental emergencies. Also, you can suffer oral injuries by simply tripping and falling. Using your teeth as a tool and chewing hard items such as nails and hard items can easily cause your tooth to fall out, break, or crack. Tooth decay can also cause severe toothache, abscess, and swelling.

Fortunately, you can avoid some dental emergencies. For instance, you should avoid using your teeth as a tool. Also, avoid chewing hard items. You can prevent dental trauma during sports by wearing protective gear such as sports mouthguards. Patients with bruxism should also consider nightguards to lessen the impact of teeth grinding. Proper dental hygiene will protect your mouth from cavities, gum disease, and oral infections.

What Should I do if I Have a Dental Emergency?

When faced with a dental emergency, you might be wondering what to do. To begin with, you should keep calm. Next, you should call your emergency dentist or contact our Plainfield dentist. If you don’t have an emergency dentist, you can ask someone to drive you to an emergency clinic near you.

As you wait for help, here are common types of dental emergencies and how you can manage them:

• Severe toothaches

Dental injuries and tooth infections mainly cause toothaches. Regardless of the cause, you can manage a toothache by rinsing your mouth with warm water. If the pain is accompanied by swelling, press a cold compress on the outer part of the cheek. Painkillers should help to manage the pain. Once you get to our New Providence dentist, they may prescribe a more potent pain reliever.

• Cracked or broken tooth

A cracked tooth can cause extreme pain and sensitivity or break easily. A broken tooth can cause injuries to the mouth’s soft tissues such as lips, tongues, cheeks, and gums. It’s essential to seek emergency care.

In the meantime, rinse your mouth with warm water and use a cold compress against your face, especially if you have swelling. If any pieces of the tooth have come out, rinse and save them in a glass of water.

• Knocked out tooth

If you knock out your natural tooth during an accident, you’ll require immediate dental care. Your dentist can try to place the tooth in its socket quickly. In the meantime, rinse the tooth and put it back in its socket. If you can’t or are afraid you might swallow it, preserve it in a glass of water or milk. To manage pain, take pain relievers such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen or use a cold compress outside the cheek.

• Soft tissue injuries or bleeding

If you hurt your gums, lips, cheeks, or tongue, you may experience severe bleeding and pain. Minor cuts to the soft tissues should heal independently, but you should seek immediate care if the wound doesn’t heal normally. As you wait for help, rinse your mouth with warm mild saltwater. You can also use moisturized gauze to control the bleeding. To relieve pain and control bleeding, use a cold compress against your cheek.

• Abscess

If you’ve noticed a pimple-like swelling and infection around your tooth or gums, you should see your dentist right away. An abscess is a serious infection and can cause damage to surrounding teeth and tissues. Until you see your dentist, rinse your mouth several times with mild saltwater.

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