If you or a loved one is in a lot of pain because of a severe toothache or dental injury, the last thing you want to hear is that your dentist can’t see you for a few days. Thankfully, at the Dent-Care Dental, we don’t make emergencies wait! We’re happy to offer same-day appointments for emergency dentistry in Sunnyside, NY, so we can get patients out of pain and put them on the road to recovery as soon as possible. And, thanks to our in-house dental lab, we’re able to complete many restorative services in a single appointment. If you need immediate help for urgent dental problems, don’t hesitate to give us a call!
It can be tough to know whether or not your situation is a dental emergency that requires immediate care, but we’ll make things nice and simple for you: if you even think you’re experiencing a dental emergency, go ahead and call our dental office. Once you’ve explained your symptoms, our team will schedule you for an appointment as soon as possible if necessary and walk you through some first-aid tips. Below, you’ll find a few of the most common dental emergencies we treat regularly.
Simply put, the easiest way to prevent most common dental emergencies is through preventive care. This includes visiting your Dent-Care Dental team for your regular, semi-annual exams and cleanings. This will not only help keep your teeth looking clean and sparkly, but it will also help screen them for cavities, gum disease, oral cancer, and any other oral health problems that you may have missed at home.
Your Dent-Care Dental team can’t be with you all the time, so taking excellent care of your oral health when you’re at home is a very important way to prevent a dental emergency. Good hygiene habits include brushing your teeth twice a day, flossing at least once a day, and not smoking or vaping.
Your diet affects your overall health, including your oral health. To keep your teeth and gums healthy and strong, be sure to eat a well-balanced diet that includes plenty of lean protein, fresh fruits and vegetables, essential fats, and is low in sugar and carbohydrates.
Furthermore, avoid eating foods that could damage your teeth such as hard candies, ice cubes, and sticky or chewy candies that could loosen dental prosthetics or restorations.
There are several types of mouthguards available, depending on your unique needs. If you clench your jaw or grind your teeth (bruxism), speak to your Dent-Care Dental team about a bite guard that can help alleviate some of the pressure placed on your teeth and jaw by grinding.
If you play sports of any kind, your dentist can also customize a sports mouthguard for you to help protect your teeth during falls or other sports injuries. Professional quality mouth guards are much more comfortable and effective than boil-and-bite guards available at sporting goods stores, so they are much easier to remember to wear, and much more likely that your child will wear one during after school sports.
While it is sometimes easier to tear open that packaging with your teeth instead of hunting around for a pair of scissors, your teeth were designed to chew food, not to open your mail. Whenever you use them for other purposes, you risk chips, breaks, or complete tooth loss. Though it may take a bit more patience to locate a proper tool for your task, it is well worth the extra effort to keep your smile safe.
In most cases, emergency rooms don’t have the tools or the expertise that’s legally required to treat dental emergencies. Instead, they’ll only give you over-the-counter painkillers and tell you to go to the dentist. This makes visiting the dentist the better option in almost all urgent dental situations. However, you should go to the ER if you have serious cuts to the face or mouth, a jaw fracture or dislocation, or an abscess/infection that is so swollen it’s affecting your ability to breathe.
In the majority of cases, a toothache is a sign that you need to visit the dentist, not simply wait it out. Many problems can cause a toothache. While it could be due to a cavity, it could also be an infection that can easily spread to other parts of the mouth. By visiting our office, you can have peace of mind knowing you’ve ruled them out and caught underlying problems before they turned worse.
Dental infections generally cause a host of symptoms, not solely tooth pain. For example, if you notice a throbbing sensation in your tooth, a bitter taste in your mouth, red or swollen gums, or a draining sore on the gums where the tooth is located, there’s a reasonable chance an infection is present. You may also notice feverish symptoms. An infection inside the tooth is considered a dental emergency, so don’t wait to call even if you’re not sure.
If a tooth becomes chipped, it will not grow back. This is because enamel lacks the ability to heal itself and can only be addressed with a dedicated restorative treatment from a dentist. The more severe the break is within the tooth, the more involved the restorative procedure needs to be to prevent it from breaking further. While minor chips with no discomfort should be handled carefully, you can generally wait during normal business hours to get them taken care of. However, if the tooth is sharp, jagged, or causing pain, call our office.
The good news is that emergency exams are generally not that expensive, so getting seen by our office is relatively affordable. With that said, there are some treatments needed to address dental emergencies, such as emergency root canal therapy and tooth removal, both of which are more expensive than preventive procedures and most other services. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should put off visiting if you’re dealing with a dental emergency. While we accept many insurance plans, there are other financing options available to you if you need them.
