Dental emergencies can arise without warning. This is especially true if you overlook the seriousness of a seemingly simple dental problem. Although some dental issues might not seem serious at first, they can quickly worsen without treatment.
You can avoid the following serious dental problems if you take prompt action to seek emergency dental care.
1. Tooth loss due to trauma
If you knock a tooth out, this is a clear dental emergency. With prompt action, a dentist can put a dislodged tooth back into its socket. But even if your tooth doesn't immediately fall out after a traumatic accident, if that tooth is loose in its socket, emergency dental care will be necessary to save the tooth in most instances.
When you bang a tooth and cause it to become loose, this damages the periodontal ligaments that hold the tooth in its socket. Without emergency dental care, the ligaments might not heal. This will result in the tooth falling out later. But if you get to an emergency dentist after a traumatic accident, they can use a dental splint to hold your tooth in place until the ligaments heal properly.
2. Tooth infections due to trauma
When you break a tooth, if the break exposes the dentin layer, that tooth will be more susceptible to infection. The dentin layer is yellow, while enamel is white. Although not all breaks of this nature will result in a tooth infection, serious breaks that are close to the root will invite bacteria to invade the wound and cause a tooth infection. A crown or filling is necessary to seal the tooth.
3. Severe swelling due to a dental abscess
If an infection does strike, that infection may result in the formation of a dental abscess. As dental abscesses fill up with pus, they cause facial swelling. In severe cases, facial swelling can spread and affect your ability to breathe and swallow when the swelling spreads to your airways. Emergency dental care can prevent severe swelling by releasing the pus from a dental abscess.
The dentist can then clean the area and provide you with antibiotics to fight the infection.
4. Tooth loss due to periodontal disease
Severe periodontal (gum) disease can cause teeth to loosen in their socket. If not treated quickly, teeth loosened by gum disease can fall out. Once they fall out in this manner, they cannot be put back into the socket. An emergency dentist can prevent tooth loss in this manner by doing a deep cleaning of the area around the tooth, and by performing gum surgery.
Share15 July 2021
The average dentist takes many client appointments each day and also deals with emergency situations on a regular basis. Dental emergencies are very common because people are likely to put off having tooth pain fixed until the pain becomes unbearable. Some people have anxiety about dental visits, and others are trying to avoid the expense of dental care. In either case, the end result is often a dental emergency. I have worked as a professional dental hygienist for many years and have seen all types of dental emergencies. I hope that this blog will help people identify potential emergencies before they become too serious and will allow people to know when to get help.
