The Seven Most Common Dental Emergencies and How to Prevent Them

Some of the most common dental emergencies include tooth decay, gum disease, and a chipped tooth. While appropriate dental care and preventive measures are optimal to preserve your oral health, knowing how to act when dental emergencies strike helps prevent long-term damage.

What dental emergencies are the most common, and are you aware of how you can deal with them? With quick and immediate response besides appropriate help from dental professionals, prevention of long-term damage and restoration of good oral health becomes comfortable.

The Seven Common Dental Emergencies

1. Toothache

Pain or discomfort is never pleasant because it indicates various conditions, including tooth decay. You can manage a minor toothache without emergency treatment. However, if the discomfort doesn’t subside within 48 hours and is accompanied by swelling, you might need urgent attention.

You must avoid using common remedies like over-the-counter painkillers or aspirin because contact with the affected gums burns the tissue. Instead, using a cold compress on your cheeks and calling a neighborhood dental clinic proves a better option.

After receiving your treatment, the dentist will stress the importance of maintaining excellent dental hygiene to prevent cavities, tooth decay, and other severe dental problems.

2. Damaged Teeth

Having chipped or broken teeth by biting on complex foods or other objects don’t merely ruin your smile but also causes immense pain. In such cases, you must rinse your mouth with warm water and apply a piece of gauze over the bleeding site. Use a cold compress on your cheeks to reduce swelling. When you seek emergency dental care to repair the broken tooth, the dentist will recommend you be conscious when biting down on crunchy and complex foods besides wearing mouthguards if you are involved in contact sports because they are also causes for your teeth chipping breaking.

3. Knocked-out Tooth

If you have a knocked-out tooth collect the tooth holding it by the crown and not the roots, and rinse it if it is dirty. Try reinserting the tooth into its socket if possible. If you fail, store the tooth in a piece of moist gauze or a milk container and get to the nearest emergency dentist to have it splinted to the neighboring tooth or best chances of preserving it. However, you must reach the emergency dentist within 30 minutes, failing which you might have to search for replacement solutions.

4. Lost Fillings or Crowns

You get fillings or crowns to restore damaged teeth for optimal functionality. Unfortunately, when they break or dislodge, you must seek treatment immediately to prevent reinfections. You can try readily available over-the-counter remedies to fix the filling or crown. Lost fillings require new restorations, while dental crowns, if in appropriate condition, are restored over your damaged tooth by dentists.

5. Broken Orthodontics

Dental braces are durable and capable of withstanding daily wear and tear because the metal brackets and wires are designed to withstand the abuse. However, they are not invulnerable to damage and can break or stick out to cause discomfort. The damage can also reverse or slow your orthodontic treatment.

If you confront broken wires on dental braces, try pushing the wire into a comfortable position or cover the exposed end with orthodontic wax. While you encounter discomfort, do not consider cutting the wire or swallowing it.

6. Dental Abscess

Infections in your mouth near the tooth or between your gums and teeth are concerning. When left untreated, a dental abscess spreads to the neighboring teeth and your jawbone, and also your bloodstream.

If you aren’t sure about whether you have a dental abscess, look for painful pimples on your gums and call the emergency dentist located nearby right away to prevent the problem from worsening. Meanwhile, you can raise your mouth with warm water and apply ice to your mouth to reduce swelling.

7. Bleeding and Pain after Tooth Extraction

You can expect some bleeding and pain following tooth extraction. Unfortunately, if the discomfort doesn’t subside even after an hour, you must seek help from dentists. Meanwhile, you can place gauze or a tea bag over the extraction site and apply pressure by biting down on it. However, you must avoid drinking or eating besides rinsing, spitting, smoking, and sucking until you receive the treatment.

The Basics of Preventing a Dental Emergency

Preventing every dental emergency is practically impossible. However, you can have preventive measures like using a mouthguard if involved in contact sports, watching how and what you eat, refraining from using your teeth for purposes other than chewing foods, and avoiding biting on complex objects that can cause your teeth to chip and crack.

If you require emergency dental care, despite the preventive measures, you adopt Brookstone Dental Care helps with most dental issues. Please contact them for any assistance you need with dental problems.