Emergency Dental Services
Sometimes, accidents or trauma can leave you with dental injuries that require immediate care. While most routine problems can wait until normal business hours and scheduled appointments, accidents can and do happen at any time, day or night. This is why Pierce Aesthetics of Newport Beach offers emergency dental services.
When are Emergency Dental Services Necessary?
There are any number of reasons why your teeth may get cracked, broken, or even knocked out.
- Biting down on food that is too hard
- Severe decay
- Falls
- Sports injuries
- Car wrecks
- Any other kind of accident
Often, chipping and minor tooth fractures can wait until regular office hours, but severely-broken or knocked-out teeth usually need emergency dental care.
What to Do about a Broken Tooth
There is no way to treat a cracked or broken tooth at home—you WILL need to see one of our dentists. However, there are things you can do to lessen the pain and discomfort until you can get into the office:
- Rinse your mouth out with warm water.
- If there is bleeding, take apiece of gauze or a moistened tea bag and apply pressure for 10 minutes or until the bleeding has stopped.
- To reduce swelling, apply an ice pack or cold compress to the outside of your cheek or lip, over the injury.
- Cover the part of the tooth that is still in your mouth with temporary dental cement, available in any drugstore.
- Take over-the-counter pain relievers.
- Avoid extremely-cold or hot food and beverages.
What to Do about a Knocked-Out Tooth
Dealing with a tooth that has been knocked out is a bit different. What you do until you can get immediate emergency treatment will largely determine if the original tooth can be salvaged and successfully re-implanted.
- Apply pressure to stop any bleeding.
- Handle the tooth as little as possible.
- Try to put the tooth back in its socket. After it is in place, biting down on a wet tea bag or a moistened rag or piece of gauze may help push it back in.
- Be extremely careful not to swallow the tooth.
- Seek emergency dental care.
If you cannot get the tooth to stay in place until you get to the dentist’s office for treatment, rinse the tooth off and then keep it covered in a container of either milk or your own saliva. Get to your dentist as soon as possible.
What about Severe Pain?
Sometimes, you won’t actually have an injury, but you may still need emergency services because of severe pain—from an abscessed or infected tooth, for example.
When OTC remedies don’t help, call Pierce Aesthetics for help, even if you don’t have an appointment. Our dentists usually leave some slots open for incoming emergency cases.
What about After-Hours Emergency Dental Treatment?
Even if our office is closed, call anyway. We have emergency numbers and instructions, and we will be better able to advise you after we know the specifics of your situation. If, for whatever reason, you can’t reach us or make it to our office, head to the closest Emergency Room for stabilization and pain relief.
ANY TIME you need emergency dental care—day, night, weekends, and holidays—contact Pierce Aesthetics of Tustin.