Common Dental Emergencies

If you have any of the dental problems below, you may have a dental emergency that you need your emergency dentist in New Lenox to examine and treat without delay. Even if your dental problem doesn’t rise to the level of an emergency, however, it’s still wise to contact your dentist and schedule an appointment to get your dental concern examined and treated so it doesn’t progress into an emergency.

1. Cavity

While you may not consider cavities dental emergencies, the longer they go without treatment (ordinarily filling or extraction) the longer the area remains exposed to the infection creating them.

2. Damage to a Tooth/Teeth

Many injuries can cause damage to one or more teeth, from an athletic injury or auto accident to grinding your teeth or using your teeth to tear, cut or rip something other than food. If you have one or more teeth knocked out or chipped, broken or cracked, call us at Forever Family Dental of New Lenox immediately to set up an appointment with an emergency dentist.

No matter the cause of the damage, it can cause you pain and discomfort. Thankfully, your dentist can help relieve that pain. From there, your dentist will protect the injury site and area surrounding it from infection and provide the necessary restoration.

3. Bleeding Gums

Bleeding gums could be an indication of gingivitis, aka early-stage gum disease. You may notice your gums bleeding when you brush or floss your teeth. This doesn’t automatically constitute a dental emergency. It only rises to that level if you can’t get the bleeding to stop within 15 minutes. If that occurs, then you should still call your dentist to schedule an exam and cleaning to help you get rid of the gingivitis (and up your dental home-care routine to include better gum care) but you don’t have to treat it like an emergency. For some ideas on how to improve your dental home-care routine to include better gum care, call our dental office in New Lenox.

Alternatively, bleeding gums may result from an impact injury to the mouth, like from a fall or sports injury, or from having a tooth recently removed. The same rules apply here as above: if you can get the bleeding to stop within 15 minutes, you don’t need emergency dentistry, but, if you can’t, you should call an emergency dentist immediately.

4. Problems With a Crown or Filling Issues

If one of your crowns or fillings breaks, comes loose, or falls out, you should consider it a dental emergency. The area the break or other damage exposes can become a site for bacteria and other harmful elements to build up into plaque and tartar. This poses the threat of infection and irritation to the tooth, and that can then spread to the tooth’s root or pulp, the gums that support and surround the tooth, nearby teeth and, eventually, the bone and tissue supporting the teeth and gums. By letting a loose, broken, or lost filling or crown go untreated, you can cause temporary damage your dentist in New Lenox will be able to clean up and relieve, in the best of cases, or, in the worst of them, irreversible damage to your mouth, including possible tooth, gum and bone loss.

Don’t allow permanent damage to occur to your mouth. Don’t leave indications of possible dental issues alone to resolve themselves–because they won’t. Instead, give us a call at Forever Family Dental of New Lenox and let us give you the emergency dental care you need.

5. Dry Sockets

After you have a tooth removed, the exposed bone and nerves need time to heal. During this time, they need protection from bacteria, mucus, food debris, and other elements that could cause infection to the area. The way the body provides this protection is by forming a blood clot over the removal site. If this blood clot doesn’t form, however, or it somehow gets dislodged, the site dries out and creates what’s known as a dry socket.

In addition to creating sites for these harmful elements to settle and irritate, inflame, and infect the nerves and bone, a dry socket can be extraordinarily painful. Nearby teeth and the surrounding gums can then catch the infection and related symptoms.

While dry sockets ordinarily heal on their own within two weeks or so, the pain they cause can be excruciating and get in the way of living your normal life. Your dentist in New Lenox, however, can help you relieve that pain and, if necessary, clean out the wound to promote healing while allowing you to resume your daily activities pain free.

If you have a tooth extracted and no blood clot forms over it to protect it or the blood clot that forms gets dislodged, call our emergency dentist in New Lenox for immediate pain relief and proper dental care.

6. Something Stuck Between the Teeth

Getting an object stuck between the teeth is not always a dental emergency. Sometimes, you can remove the object yourself by brushing and flossing your teeth. If that doesn’t work, however, emergency dentistry will be necessary to remove the object before it causes infection, irritation, inflammation and other damage to the teeth and gums surrounding the object.

7. Tooth Abscess

When the tooth’s pulp gets infected, it’s called an abscess. This abscess can spread to the gums and nearby teeth, eventually destroying the bone and tissue underlying them.

A tooth abscess often results from not treating a cavity soon enough. This lets the bacteria causing and contained within the cavity to spread to the pulp of the tooth, causing painful inflammation, a poor taste in the mouth and severe sensitivity in the tooth.

Don’t wait until a dental problem becomes an emergency or a dental emergency becomes worse. Call our dental office, Forever Family Dental of New Lenox. We’re standing by and ready to help you relieve your pain and heal your mouth so you can restore and retain your beautiful, healthy smile.