Emergency Dentistry

In case you are in the midst of a dental emergency, you must be under a lot of tension. The experience would be quite nerve-racking when such an emergency occurs on a late Saturday night and you will not be able meet your dentist before Monday morning. Or it might be the case that your dentist is away from office for a few days and you are facing this dental emergency.

It is also very true that it is very difficult to handle a dental emergency on your own. A few suggestions are given here to help such a situation in a much better way.

The most common dental emergency is caused by toothache. Therefore, it is always a good idea that your tooth problem should not turn out into an emergency.

Mostly, these emergencies happen because of pain or swelling from infected teeth. These problems do not happen suddenly. The problem starts to develop over a period of time. You could be facing the problem of pain and discomfort for several days or even for a longer period before there is severe toothache and becomes a dental emergency.

Therefore, the best suggestion to avoid such a dental emergency is that you should consult your dentist immediately after you start feeling discomfort or pain in the teeth or gums.

Some people have the wrong idea that they should ignore these warning signals and the problem would get cured by itself. But, that never happens. The situation starts to deteriorate as it is neglected and reaches an extreme condition at an unexpected time causing dental emergency. It would be always wise to treat a dental infection before it flares up, because in that case the dentist would be able to handle the situation in a much better fashion.

Having said this, if you are unfortunately facing a dental emergency, then what should you do? There are a number of steps you could take to mitigate the situation. Pain in the teeth or gum could be effectively controlled by using such OTC pain relievers like ibuprophen, naproxen, or acetaminophen. 

You can use warm salt water, which contains a teaspoon of salt in eight ounces of water, for rinsing to provide temporary relief to puffy or swollen cheeks and gums. Some proprietary protects like Orajel could be applied to relieve minor soreness of the gum. In case, a tooth is broken, you can use a piece of wax or even a soft chewing gum to cover the sharp edges until you meet your dentist.

In this age of mobile phones, you can always connect your dentist over the mobile phone, even if you are not able to contact your dentist physically. Your dentist might give you advice for handling such an emergency and even give reference of other dentists you could contact while your dentist is away.