Top 7 Dental Emergencies and How To Prevent Them

What’s Considered a Dental Emergency

Dental emergencies are usually traumatic and stressful for patients. Sometimes they’re feeling a lot of pain; other times, it’s fear and uncertainty about what the dental clinic can do to fix the issue.

A dental emergency can be a situation where your teeth or gums are causing:

• Severe pain
• Cracked tooth or filling
• Swelling
• Bleeding
• And more.

Want to know more what is emergency dentistry, then click here to read our blog on it.

Common Dental Emergencies

There is a range of dental emergencies that our patients experience at The Smile Designer, ranging from a knocked-out tooth to infected gums. Here are the seven most common reasons patients visit our dental clinic and what you can do to avoid them.

Toothache

When it comes to dental care, a toothache could be a sign of several issues that are never good. While some problems are manageable, if they are accompanied by swelling, it’s usually a sign your teeth and gums require urgent care.

While taking painkillers may seem like the right choice to relieve the insistent pain, a cold compress to your cheek is more effective until you see your emergency dentist.

Prevention:

Toothache is usually due to neglected teeth, which are now decayed. The best way to avoid such an issue in the future is to brush and floss your teeth regularly and visit your dentist once or twice a year.

Knocked-out Tooth

Teeth are knocked out for various reasons—playing sports, falling off a horse, or perhaps your face hitting something sharp. While it may seem drastic at the time, in many circumstances, if you act quickly, it can be saved.

If the tooth is dirty, rinse it off; otherwise, leave it be and try to put it back into the socket immediately. If that’s not possible, place the tooth in a container with milk and get to your dentist asap; within a half hour is ideal.

Prevention:

If you’re playing a sport, especially contact games, wearing a mouthguard can protect your teeth from significant damage. In Australia, it’s mandatory to wear a mouth guard in any sport where an accidental collision could occur—AFL, boxing, netball, soccer, and cricket, to name a few.

Lost Crown or Filling

When a crown or filling falls out or breaks, you need to see an emergency dentist immediately to avoid further damage. If left untreated, the patient is likely to experience pain and inflammation.

You mustn’t try to repair the tooth, as it could lead to further damage.

Prevention:

The need for crowns and fillings results from poor dental care. Keeping up with your oral health by regularly brushing and flossing your teeth will help avoid the need for this type of dental care.

Broken or Chipped Tooth

Biting down on something too hard can cause damage to your smile by chipping or breaking a tooth. In addition to going to the dentist immediately, you should rinse your mouth with warm water and put gauze on the bleeding area. Use a cold compress to reduce swelling and pain.

Prevention:

Our Melbourne dental clinic recommends that you don’t bite down on hard foods like boiled sweets. If you are eating crunchy food, be mindful of how you eat it and your bite.

Abscess

When you have an infection in your mouth around your teeth or gums, it’s relatively serious. You will feel pain, and it can spread throughout your body if left untreated. An abscess usually presents as a pimple-like, swollen spot on your gums that is painful.

There is little you can do at home to ease the pain, and seeing your emergency dentist will help you manage the pain and infection.

Prevention

An abscess is caused by bad dental hygiene or decaying teeth, like many other dental problems. Visiting your family dentist once or twice a year for a teeth cleaning and check-up can help avoid these issues.

Bleeding

Whether bleeding occurs from a tooth or gums after brushing, it’s a sign you have gingivitis, a gum disease. If it doesn’t stop or you’re experiencing persistent bleeding after a tooth extraction, you need to call your dentist.

Placing gauze over the area and applying pressure by biting down can help stop the bleeding until you reach your dentist.

Prevention:

While there isn’t necessarily a way to avoid bleeding after an extraction, following your post-op care instructions will help prevent the issue.

Broken Braces

Even though braces are strong and last through eating, chewing, and talking, they can sometimes break or get stuck in your gums or cheeks. When this happens, they cause discomfort and slow down the orthodontic straightening progress.

Visit your dentist as soon as you can fix your braces, but do not try it yourself, as swallowing the wire when cutting it is a genuine risk.

Prevention:

We recommend eating the right foods and cleaning and caring for your braces as instructed by your dentist or orthodontist to help avoid these issues.

What to Do in a Dental Emergency?

If you experience a dental emergency, the first action is not to panic. If you feel calm, it’s easier to identify the issue. Have The Smile Designer’s contact details on hand so you can call us immediately, and we can work towards fixing your teeth or gums.