Medical emergencies or really anything unplanned or unexpected always come at the most inconvenient times. Your car breaks down on your way to a big job interview, your cat breaks a leg before you leave for vacation, you trip over a toy car in the middle of the night and chip a tooth on a Saturday. “Why now!” we say. Life will test our limits, throw curveballs to see if we can adjust, and we know this.
Emergency Dental is available every day of the week so these curveballs of life aren’t nearly as inconvenient as they could be. Some emergencies need to be taken care of immediately. Which ones are worth rushing to the emergency dentist? Take a look at these signs you’re due for a tooth extraction, and if you need to visit a dentist sooner rather than later.
Tooth Crowding
Feeling like it’s getting a little crowded in your mouth all of a sudden? This could mean your teeth are shifting into the improper position. The term for this is quite simple. Dentists call this “overcrowding” when your teeth begin to grow in the wrong position are perhaps your teeth are too large to fit in the spaces they’re meant to. Before this causes any damage to neighboring teeth or discomfort to the patient, dentists might plan to remove any troubling teeth that prevent others from growing in the right spaces. Sometimes this procedure will need to take place before a patient gets braces so the line up has plenty of room.
Infection or Damage
When a tooth starts to or has been in the process of decay, depending on the damage at the time of your visit, a dentist can offer two solutions. If the damage is seemingly early in its stages, the dentist can perform a root canal – this solution isn’t guaranteed effective depending on the damage to the tooth’s pulp. If the pulp of your tooth has become infected, neighboring teeth to the infection are now, too, prone to infection. In this case, the dentist will call for a tooth extraction emergency.
Some patients are more at risk than others, which calls for earlier treatment of extraction. For example, a patient who is undergoing chemotherapy will have a weaker immune system, therefore even fighting infection on a cracked or broken tooth will be at even higher risk. In cases like this, the dentist will call for a tooth extraction emergency.
How to Prepare
The actual extraction process will take quite a bit of preparing by the dentist before anything can be removed. Dentists will conduct several X-rays to analyze the area before anything else procedures. In the event a patient has an impacted, cracked or damaged tooth, they will need to slightly cut into the gum to better expose the tooth. This will make the tooth easier to grab and remove with forceps. Post extraction, the dentist might require a few stitches to close the exposed area and ask the patient to schedule a few follow-up appointments to ensure proper healing and health of the area.
If you’re uncertain about a mouth crowding, pain or experienced an oral accident past regular office hours call an emergency dentist for help!
