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Dental Emergencies

Dental emergencies can be very frightening and painful. Patients are sometimes unaware of what to do when they are involved with a dental emergency.  The best advice is to go to your dental office as soon as the dental emergency occurs. If you can’t make it to your office go to the nearest emergency room. Your dental office will usually have an emergency contact phone number to reach your dentist, if the dentist is not available. The dentist can guide you on what steps to take for your dental emergency.

The most common type of dental emergency for when patients seek dental care is an abscessed tooth. The symptoms include pain on the tooth where the abscess formed, swelling, and response to heat or cold.  This a sign that the tooth is infected and the abscess grow because the fluid has no way of releasing from the bone.  If the tooth goes untreated it may cause severe pain, especially at night time when the patient is resting.  Your dentist will treat abscess with antibiotic and dental treatment.  The dental treatment will depend on the infection and how bad the tooth is affected.

Another type of dental emergency is Alveolitis. This is more known as dry socket, a dry socket can occur after a dental extraction. This happens when a blood clot does not form or is washed away out of the socket exposing the nerve endings. This exposure causes great discomfort and increases the chance of infections.  The way this is treated is by carefully rinsing the area and then placing a special dry socket paste.  This material can be placed for one or two days until the discomfort starts diminishing.  The patient might need to take pain medication along with the dry socket paste treatment to control discomfort.

Broken tooth is also a common dental emergency. The anterior (front) teeth are most common to become fractured or broken. The anterior teeth are more exposed, to the rest of the teeth. The fracture or broken teeth usually happen on young children when they are playing and fall or adults involved in an accident. Another common way for teeth to break is from dental caries, the tooth becomes weak and when the patients bites down on something hard the tooth breaks. This can be treated with dental treatment, and the treatment depends on how bad the fracture is and how it’s affecting the patient.

Broken Prosthesis can also be a dental emergency. This is normally not a physical pain but more concern with esthetics or loss of function. The broken prosthesis can usually be fixed in office, but for major repairs will need to be sent out to a dental lab for best results.

Temporary crowns may become loose and may require re-cementation.  These are very common to come off because they are cemented with temporary cement. If your temporary crown comes off or breaks visit your dentist for re-cementation of the crown. If you have any questions regarding any type of dental emergency please contact our Santa Ana Dentist Dr. Danial Kalantari or your friendly office of Smiles on Bristol Dentistry. Contact Us