Categories: Emergency Dentistry

Helping You With Your Dental Emergency

A dental emergency refers to injuries to the tooth, unexplained pain, and even compromised orthodontics or prosthetics. These are issues that don’t need to be delayed or ignored, and we can help! In today’s blog, your Maple Grove, MN, dentist talks about how we help smiles with emergency dental services.

Common Dental Emergency Situations

What constitutes a dental emergency? If the issue is potentially life threatening, we urge you to call 911 or proceed to the nearest emergency room. But if you have an issue that isn’t life threatening but requires immediate attention, then contact our office. Even if this happens outside of normal business hours, we can reach out with a time to contact our team. Examples include:

Chipped, cracked, or broken teeth
Teeth knocked loose or out
Sudden toothaches
Objects caught between teeth that floss can’t remove
Missing or damaged crowns or fillings
Damaged dental prosthetics

When you or a family member encounters issues like these, please reach out to our team right away!

How to Ease Your Initial Discomfort

To help ease your discomfort before you can see us, we urge you to take an over-the-counter pain reliever. You can rinse with warm water and use cloth or gauze to stem any bleeding. To avoid facial swelling, use an ice pack or cold compress. Don’t try to remove trapped objects with anything other than floss, as you risk damaged teeth or gums. If a tooth is knocked out, pick it up by the crown, not the tooth, and put it in a sealed container of milk or salt water. If a tooth is broken, try to recover any pieces and bring them with you.

Our Treatment Approach

When you arrive, we will carefully examine your smile to assess the extent of your injuries, and to plan treatment in detail. With dental bonding, we can use composite resin to offer lifelike repair in one visit. For more severe injuries, we could address the issue with a custom and natural-looking crown. We can place knocked out teeth into their proper positions, and also replace a compromised restoration or prosthetic. Immediate action helps lower the risk of complications like tooth decay and infection, keeping your smile whole and healthy. Our team could also help by creating a custom athletic mouthguard that you or your kids can wear to limit the risk of future injuries.

If you have any questions about our approach to dental emergency care, then contact our team today to learn more. We want to help you enjoy a beautiful and strong smile, addressing injuries that could complicate your oral health and bite function.