What to Do if You Have a Weekend Dental Emergency
A dental emergency is scary any day of the week, but a weekend dental emergency can be a horror. What should I do? Where can I get weekend dental care? How do I find an emergency dentist near me? Is there even a dentist open on weekends? How can I find an emergency dentist in Los Angeles? These are just some of the questions you’ll be asking yourself while panicking from a sudden toothache or holding a broken piece of your tooth in your hands. So we’re going to walk you through the things you should do if you experience a weekend dental emergency and talk about different dental conditions that require a dentist’s immediate attention.
Identifying a Weekend Dental Emergency
Before you start searching for a “weekend emergency dentist” and “emergency dentist near me”, you should determine if your situation is even an emergency. Not every minor toothache is. But the cases that need weekend dental care are serious conditions and can sometimes be life-threatening. We have provided a thorough list of these emergencies below. After identify in gone, you should call your dentist or look for a dentist open on weekends and schedule an appointment. Until your visit, you can find temporary relief by using an ice pack or taking painkillers. When you go to your weekend emergency dentist, he will examine your mouth, take x-rays, and tend to your situation. Dr. Kezian, a weekend emergency dentist in Los Angeles, charges a base fee for the x-rays and diagnosis that may include prescription of antibiotics, cleaning of irritated gums, or some other basic adjustments, so you don’t have to worry about the costs.
Types of Emergencies Treated by a Weekend Emergency Dentist
A weekend dental emergency is any type of serious dental injury that can be caused by bad oral hygiene, harmful habits, and accidents. Below, is a list of the most common dental emergencies treated by a weekend emergency dentist. These conditions need weekend dental care and shouldn’t be ignored or they will cause more damage and even put your life at risk. Let’s take a look at them.
Dental Pain
Mild and infrequent toothaches are not a big concern. They are usually a sign of minor cavities and can be treated in an upcoming appointment. What should prompt you to call your weekend emergency dentist is a sharp and excruciating pain that won’t go away. This kind of dental pain that radiates throughout your mouth and gets worse when you apply pressure on it, is considered a weekend dental emergency and needs the immediate attention of a dentist and weekend dental care. If not treated, it can make your teeth sensitive to hot and cold food and create a bad odor in your mouth.
The severity of the pain depends on the underlying cause of it. Most toothaches are a result of poor oral hygiene and eating too much sugar. These bad habits can decay your teeth and create deep cavities. Other causes of unbearable toothaches include pain from broken teeth, wisdom tooth, and pulpal inflammation. You can find some relief by taking painkillers and using a cold compress until you visit your weekend emergency dentist.
The dentist will first examine your teeth and take x-rays to identify the cause of the problem. If a decayed tooth is the source of the pain, he will numb the area, drill the tooth to remove the decay, disinfect it and fill it with composite resin or another type of filling. If there is a larger cavity in your tooth, you may need a root canal therapy. In this procedure, the dentist will drill the tooth until it reaches the damaged pulp where the nerves are. He will remove the dead pulp and clean the root canal. Then he will place a crown over it to protect the exposed area.
Tooth Fracture
Although your tooth’s enamel is one of your body’s strongest mineralized tissues, it is not unbreakable. Different traumatic accidents such as falling or biting hard food like candy can fracture your teeth. Chipped or broken teeth are more sensitive to hot and cold food. Plus they can cause pain and damage the soft tissues in your mouth. If you don’t tend to a fractured tooth immediately, it can even get infected and cause you to lose the tooth. So a trip to the weekend emergency dentist is necessary.
Painkillers can help you control the pain until you visit the dentist. If you can find the broken piece of your tooth, put it in gauze and take it with you to the clinic. Small fractures can be repaired in one visit with dental filling or bonding. Bonding is usually used for front teeth to give your smile a more natural look. The dentist will apply dental adhesive to your broken tooth and apply a tooth-colored material on top of it, then using light to secure it in place.
If the fracture is more severe, it will take longer for your dentist to restore your tooth to its healthy state. In these cases, a dental crown or veneer is used. When large parts of your tooth are broken or you have deeper cavities, the dentist will numb your mouth and make room for a resin or porcelain crown that will protect the damaged tooth. For a front tooth, a dental veneer might be the better option as it creates a more natural appearance. The dentist will make an impression of your tooth and send it to the laboratory. When the custom-made veneer is ready, he will cement it to your fractured tooth and use light to harden it. If the fracture is deep enough that it reaches the pulp, you may also need a root canal therapy.
Dental Avulsion
A hard blow to the face is enough to knock your tooth out of its socket. Tooth avulsion can be one of the scariest weekend dental emergencies, but nothing that an emergency dentist near you can’t fix. What you should do if the tooth has completely fallen out, is to gently put it back in its place. If you can’t do that, keep it in milk. The fallen tooth has to be placed back in its socket within an hour. So visit your weekend emergency dentist immediately. He will clean out the socket and reposition the tooth back in, splinting it to the surrounding teeth to keep it in place for a few weeks. Depending on the severity of the trauma, it will take some time for your avulsed tooth to fuse back to the bone. After that, the dentist will check it again to make sure everything is ok. If the procedure was not successful or you couldn’t find the fallen tooth, there are other options like dental implants and dentures to fill its empty place.
Dislodged Filling, Crown, and Veneer
Good dental restorations will last you a long time but they will eventually become worn. Plus, they are not immune to traumas, hard food, and harmful habits like nail-biting. So it’s not unusual if your dental filling, crown, or veneer is dislodged and falls off. This often leads to pain and makes your exposed tooth more sensitive. So you will need to call a weekend emergency dentist immediately for weekend dental care. You can take over-the-counter painkillers until your visit to reduce the pain.
For broken fillings, the emergency dentist will start by taking an x-ray of your tooth and examine its state. Then he will replace the filling. If the damage is more significant, he will suggest a dental crown.
For a dislodged crown or veneer, if it has completely fallen out, you can use some drugstore dental cement to secure it back in place until you visit the dentist or you can keep it in a bag and take it with you to your appointment. The dentist might be able to use that and save you the cost of a new dental crown or veneer. Dr. Kezian, an emergency dentist in Los Angeles, can recement the dislodged veneers and crowns in the same appointment.
Soft Tissue Damage
The soft tissues in your mouth include your gums, cheeks, tongue, and the inside of your lips. These areas have a considerable number of blood vessels and if they’re injured due to accidents or biting, they will bleed. Usually, the bleeding won’t be too much and you won’t need weekend dental care. But if it doesn’t stop and you can’t control it, that’s when it’s a weekend dental emergency. So wash your mouth with warm salt water and apply pressure to the area with gauze as you look for an emergency dentist open on weekends.
The dentist will first clean the area to avoid infection and then tend to your injury. He might need to stitch the wound if the damage is too severe, but that’s not usually the case and the treatment is less extensive.
Dental Abscess and Swelling
A breakage in your gums due to aggressive brushing is a great place for bacteria to live and create an infection. This infection will cause a swelling around the tooth’s roots that will be filled with pus. This is without a doubt a weekend dental emergency that if left untreated, can spread throughout your body and even endanger your life. Some signs of a dental abscess include pain, bleeding, swollen gums, and a bad taste in the mouth. Call a weekend emergency dentist as soon as you notice any of these symptoms. Do not drain the pus-filled abscess as this can help the infection spread. Instead, rinse your mouth with salt water and get ready for your weekend dental care.
At the clinic, the dentist will examine your abscess and treat it accordingly. The quickest way to get rid of the abscess is by drainage under local anesthesia. The dentist will create a small incision and remove the pus. If this isn’t doable and the infection is more serious, he will place you on an antibiotic course to treat the abscess.
Another way to remove all traces of the infection is by performing a root canal therapy. Generally, if this is needed, your dentist will calm the infection with antibiotics and pain medication, then schedule for a root canal therapy. In case the infection is too severe and your tooth can’t be saved, the dentist will extract the tooth and drain the abscess. If you postpone your trip to a weekend emergency dentist and the infection gets worse, you put yourself at risk of hospitalization.
Other Types of Weekend Dental Emergencies
The list of weekend dental emergencies is not limited to the items we mentioned above. Other conditions might need weekend dental care too. For instance, if something gets stuck between your teeth and causes pain and swelling, it will need the attention of an emergency dentist. Traumas that injure your facial bones may put your airway in jeopardy. You might need your orthodontic wires or dentures to be adjusted or your sutures to be removed.
If you’re not sure that you’re experiencing a weekend dental emergency, you can always call a dentist and ask. If you live in California, you can call the office of Dr. Kezian, a weekend emergency dentist in Los Angeles, tell him about your condition, and make an appointment. Dr. Kezian and his team are ready to take care of your weekend dental emergency and rid you of the pain. So the next time your tooth starts to ache on a Sunday, do not panic and reach out to Dr. Kezian.
Dr. Arthur A. Kezian DDS
443 N. Larchmont Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90004
(323) 467-2777
http://www.drkezian.com
References:
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- American Dental Association –What Constitutes a Dental Emergency?
- Colgate –Injured Tooth: What Should I Do?
- Canadian Dental Association –Dental Emergencies