Emergency Dental Care
The Berkshire Family Dental team is here to help with same day emergency dental appointments; call today at 202-244-3902!
Dental Emergencies
A dental emergency is something that can be difficult to define. If you fall and one of your teeth is knocked out, you would probably consider this to be an emergency. You would want to get to our office as soon as possible to try to save the tooth! If you are experiencing tooth pain, you may not think of it as an emergency situation, but severe pain in your teeth or gums could be an emergency just like severe pain anywhere else in your body would be. An emergency dental appointment can stop the pain, and begin to correct whatever is causing it before it has a chance to get worse.
If you have a dental emergency, there are some steps you should take before you get to the office for treatment. Here are some common dental emergencies and the things you should do immediately if they happen:
Broken Tooth
If you break a tooth, try to save the broken piece or pieces. If the tooth is shattered, it may not be possible to collect the pieces, but if it was a clean break, our dentist might be able to bond the pieces together and restore the tooth without the need for an artificial crown. Put the broken pieces in a container with milk and bring them to our office with you.
Lost Tooth
If a tooth is completely knocked out, rinse it with warm water and wash your mouth with water. Use gauze or a tissue to control bleeding by putting it in the socket and biting down. If you get to our office within half an hour, there’s a good chance the tooth can be reattached. After 30 minutes, reattachment is possible, but less likely, and you might end up needing an artificial tooth replacement.
Severe or Persistent Pain
A toothache is something that many people suffer for a long time before calling the dentist. Dental treatment relieves pain, and the sooner you get treatment, chances are, the less complex the treatment will be. Pain in the teeth or gums is almost always a sign of a serious problem. Pain that is serious or won’t go away could be a dental abscess, which is a serious infection. An abscess that is left untreated can kill the tooth root, which has the effect of stopping the pain. If you have a toothache that goes away by itself, that’s not necessarily a good thing. Recurring toothaches or toothaches in different parts of the mouth indicate that you need to call our office and come in to find out what’s wrong.
