What Is A Dental Emergency?
A dental emergency is any situation that brought trauma to your mouth, causing it to bleed, swell, or affect the condition of your teeth, gums, and other surrounding mouth tissue. These situations require immediate dental attention so that no further complications and injuries will follow.
What Can Be Considered As A Dental Emergency?
Now that you know what a dental emergency is by definition, you must wonder what circumstances are considered dental emergencies. To be honest, the determining factor of what makes a dental condition an emergency is the amount of impact or the severity of the trauma and its result. Here are some conditions that are typically considered as dental emergencies. We will also explain in detail what help they can expect as emergency dental care.
Toothache
Yes, you read it right. Though toothaches may or may not be a result of an injury or accident, dentists still consider them as a dental emergency. Why? Because the extent or severity of a toothache does not directly correlate the extent or severity of the decay. Some people would feel so much pain, but the cause is only food debris.
Meanwhile, others feel very little pain, but the damage to the teeth already extends to the roots. It is then imperative for a patient to visit his dentist as soon as he feels pain on his tooth. But if the situation happens when his dentist is unavailable, the services of an emergency dentist is deemed necessary.
Cracked Tooth
This condition may or may not entail emergency dental care. Not all tooth fractures are considered an emergency because the effect on the tooth of a minor crack or chip is only aesthetic in nature. However, if the fracture extends to the part of the tooth that is embedded in the gum, it may endanger the stability of the tooth and affect the pulp where the nerves and blood vessels of the tooth reside. It is then important to rush to the nearest dental emergency care provider to make sure that your tooth is saved and no further complications will arise from it.
Knocked-Out Tooth
This may happen very often in sports events. Children playing active contact sports like soccer, football, hockey, basketball, or others may suddenly and accidentally get hit in the face and cause a tooth to be dislodged from the socket. This can result in two things: partial dislodging or complete removal of the tooth. Both conditions require emergency dental care because the tooth can only die within an hour from the accident. Clearly, a sense of urgency is a must.
For the partially-dislodged tooth, try to rinse your mouth to remove any debris that may get inside the hanging tooth. If you can, gently and carefully try to put it back the socket, if it does not get it without exerting force, stop and let the emergency dentist do it.
For the completely knocked out tooth, the key is to handle the tooth well. Clean it with running water and store it in a container with milk or saltwater. Secure an appointment with an emergency dentist so he can try to put it back safely to the socket. Expect that he will also perform other procedures to make sure that the tooth is secure and stable.
Tooth Abscess
If there is a presence of pus on the gum or near the tooth, infection is the main culprit. A tooth abscess can affect not only the tooth but also the gums and the surrounding tissues. Worse, the infection may spread quickly to other organs once the pus reaches the blood vessels on the pulp of the tooth. This situation is the very reason why dentists consider tooth abscess as a dental emergency. If you notice a pimple-looking bump on your gum in between your teeth, call an emergency dentist to avail a much-needed emergency dental care.