Taking care of your teeth and gums is essential to ensure a lifetime of healthy smiles. But sometimes, despite your best efforts, you can experience dental trauma that requires immediate attention.
When this happens, you need to know what to do so that you can seek prompt treatment. This article will help you to recognize and handle the most common dental emergencies:.
Tooth Pain or Discomfort
Whether from a toothache, cracked or fractured tooth, or a bitten tongue or lip (may require emergency room visit), dental pain is an indication that something urgent needs to be taken care of. Visiting a 24 Hour Dentist of Durham NC can provide immediate relief and longer-lasting results.
The best thing to do in a dental emergency is to remain calm and think through the situation to assess what you need to do to solve the problem. This will help keep you from panicking or doing something that could make the situation worse, such as putting anything into a knocked out tooth.
Gum Damage
Are your gums swollen or bleeding when you brush and floss? These symptoms are not normal and are a sign of a bacterial infection in your gums that is damaging the tissue surrounding your teeth. Studies have shown that gum disease can increase your risk of stroke, heart disease, respiratory infections and low birth weight babies.
Getting your gum disease treated in the early stages can help prevent permanent damage to teeth and gum tissue. Treatments can include in-office periodontal therapy, increased at-home oral hygiene cleaning and prescription-strength mouthwashes.
Broken Dentures
Even when you diligently take care of your teeth, physical trauma can cause cracked, broken or missing teeth. These problems can lead to a misaligned bite, bone degeneration and other issues.
Partial dentures fill in the gaps created by missing teeth, stopping adjacent natural teeth from shifting into the open space and causing problems with chewing, biting and smiling. Our skilled team will custom craft your dentures with leading-edge materials that are so natural they’re virtually undetectable.
Dental implants can eliminate the slipping of conventional dentures and the need for glues, adhesives or soaks. Dr. Blaylock will create a personalized treatment plan and coordinate with a local oral surgeon to secure your dental implants.
Bleeding Gums
Swollen gums that bleed easily are often a sign of advanced gum disease. It is also important for patients to visit their dentist regularly and practice good oral hygiene, which includes brushing twice a day and flossing daily. This helps keep bacteria away from the teeth and gums. Patients with certain medical conditions, like kidney or lung diseases, diabetes, sinus infections or taking prescription medications including birth control pills are more prone to develop gum problems and should take extra care of their oral health.
Dental emergencies can happen even to those who follow the best oral care habits. Contacting the right 24 Hour Dentist of Durham NC immediately will ensure that the emergency is treated properly.
Tooth Fracture or Damage
When teeth sustain trauma, such as chipping or being knocked out, they must be treated right away to prevent infection and provide long-lasting relief. While an emergency room may offer some oral pain management, only a dentist has the specific tools and training needed to resolve dental emergencies.
If a tooth is pushed partially or fully out of its socket, it’s important to find and save any fragments and rinse the mouth with lukewarm water. Applying a cold compress can also help reduce swelling and manage pain. A Durham emergency dental professional will be able to re-position and stabilize the tooth.
Abscess
Any time a tooth becomes infected it is a dental emergency. It needs to be handled promptly by Durham emergency dental professionals in order to save the tooth, prevent future infections and alleviate extreme pain.
Tooth infections can be caused by gum disease, untreated cavities, a blow to the mouth and more. Symptoms include pain, swelling and redness in the jaw.
Regular oral health routines of twice-daily brushing and flossing can keep the teeth and gums healthy. Routine visits to the dentist can also ensure that any small problems are treated before they become emergencies.
Root Canal
Root canals are one of the most feared dental procedures but can actually be pain-free, quick and relatively comfortable. If not treated, a tooth with a damaged pulp can become infected or develop an abscess.
A common cause of this is trauma to the tooth or a deep cavity that has allowed bacteria to get inside the pulp. A root canal will remove the inflamed or infected tissue, clean and disinfect the root and canal, and fill it with medication to prevent further infection and to relieve the pain.
