20 November 2020
Resource Center
A dental emergency is a problem with your teeth, mouth, or soft tissue that a dentist must address immediately. In the event of a dental emergency, schedule an appointment with your dentist as soon as possible. However, if your dental emergency occurs when your dentist’s office is closed, you will likely need to seek treatment from an emergency dentist.
What Is an Emergency Dentist?
An emergency dentist is simply a professional dentist capable of helping you obtain treatment for emergent dental injuries. Often, emergency dentists accept patients on a walk-in basis to give immediate care for each dental injury; others schedule regular patients while leaving room in their schedules to accept emergency patients. Regardless of the type of scheduling used, emergency dentists specialize in providing urgent, same-day care to patients experiencing a dental emergency.
Emergency dentists often treat patients experiencing traumatic damage to the teeth, mouth, or soft tissue, including:
- Tooth injuries. Injuries to your teeth, including cracked teeth and knocked out teeth, must be addressed as soon as possible for you to have the best chances at saving the tooth.
- Soft tissue injuries. Injuries to the soft tissue in your mouth and the soft tissue surrounding your teeth, such as a gum injury, bitten tongue, or a bitten lip, can cause severe bleeding and infection.
- Abscesses. Untreated cavities can cause the infection in a tooth to spread, causing swelling, severe pain, fever, and even sepsis – a blood infection that can affect the organs.
- Lost fillings or crowns. Lost fillings and crowns can expose the soft tissue inside a tooth and cause pain and risk for infection.
Finding Emergency Dental Care
Keep in mind that most emergency rooms are not equipped to handle dental emergencies – in most cases, you will likely receive antibiotics and pain medication, which will not address the emergent issues with your teeth. If your dentist does not have an appointment available – or if your dental emergency occurs outside of regular working hours – he or she may have emergency instructions available for you.
Overall, the best method of finding an emergency dentist available to treat your issue immediately is to contact an emergency dental service. Such services have built a registry of experienced emergency dentists and can link you to a specialist in your area to address your needs as soon as possible.
If you are experiencing a dental emergency, Emergency Dental Service can help you locate an emergency dental facility in your area. Simply contact our emergency helpline 24/7 at 1-888-350-1340. Alternatively, contact us online to book your local emergency dental appointment as soon as possible.