Just about everyone will experience an emergency situation at one time or another – whether a pipe bursts in your home during the winter or your car breaks down on the highway while you’re on vacation.
It’s natural to feel helpless and anxious when you don’t have the ability to fix an urgent problem on your own. And when it comes to dental emergencies, the anxiety level seems to ratchet up exponentially.
“Don’t panic,” says our own Dr. Meriem Boukadoum. Here at 54th Street Dental, we offer our patients the peace of mind that comes from knowing we’ll provide emergency dental care services when urgent needs arise.
Sometimes figuring out what constitutes a true dental emergency can be difficult. After all, if your cousin is getting married in two days and you meant to schedule a teeth whitening, but never did, it may seem like an emergency to you.
A good general rule of thumb is if you’ve incurred trauma to your mouth that results in severe pain or bleeding or you can’t eat or talk comfortably, then you need emergency dental care. Similarly, if you are experiencing throbbing pain along with inflammation and fever, seek care right away, as you may have a bacterial infection from an abscessed tooth.
Here are a several examples of how emergency care from our dentist can provide help in an urgent situation involving your teeth.
At the heart of delivering superior oral and dental care is saving or restoring a patient’s natural teeth. Each year more than 5 million teeth are “avulsed” (knocked out) from an impact mishap, resulting in a common scenario for emergency dental care.
If your tooth is knocked out, there are a couple key things for you to do after contacting your emergency dentist. First, gently place the tooth back in the socket if you can. When handling the tooth, take care not to touch the bottom or root area, but instead hold it by its crown. Once the tooth is back in the socket, gently bite down on a piece of gauze or a clean cloth to keep it in place.
If you can’t put the tooth back in its socket, then keep the tooth clean and moist. If the tooth is dirty, gently rinse it under water, again making sure you don’t touch the roots. To keep it moist as you travel to your dentist, either place it between your cheek and gums or put it in a small container of water milk.
Nearly 40% of all dental injuries are sports-related. Impact injuries from sports, auto accidents, and falls bring together a perfect storm for damage to the mouth and jaw.
Remember, even if you’ve managed to control the bleeding or other symptoms, seeing our dentist for an emergency visit is important. The trauma may have caused damage that may not be evident to the naked eye, it just makes sense to get an examination from a specialist who can treat any dental injuries.
At times, broken teeth and damaged or broken crowns or dentures may initiate a visit to our emergency dentist. If you ever absent-mindedly chomped on an ice cube or bit into an popcorn kernel, you know that kind of pain and tooth sensitivity just doesn’t go away on its own. We can get you on the road to feeling better and back to enjoying all your favorite foods again.
If you have a dental emergency, contact 54th Street Dental right away. To reach us, use the online booking tool or call our office at 212-333-3200. If it’s after hours, simply follow the prompts on our outgoing message. Rest assured that 54th Street Dental will be there when you need us the most.
