Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley CA
It’s always smart to be prepared for emergencies, especially when it comes to dental health. Often, a person’s natural inclination during a dental emergency, especially if it happens after normal business hours, is to go to the emergency room. While sometimes this is exactly what one should do — such as in the case of head, face or mouth trauma — other dental issues, like a chipped tooth, aren’t technically considered emergencies. In other words, they can usually wait a day until our family dentist’s office in Santa Cruz is open for regular business hours.
But how do you know if your dental injury requires a visit to the emergency dentist?
Our dental team has compiled the following information to help you determine if you’re dealing with an emergency situation:
A tooth is knocked out of socket
If you sustain an injury to your mouth and a tooth is knocked out, you’ll want to get to a dentist as quickly as possible for an assessment. If you know where the tooth is, clean any blood or dirt off of it and try to place it back in the socket. If this doesn’t work, place the tooth in a cup of milk for transport and bite down on a piece of gauze on the way to the emergency dentist. The tooth may be able to be re-implanted. If not, your Los Gatos dentist will discuss restorative treatments with you.
A nerve is exposed
When a tooth nerve is exposed, you’ll usually know it because it’s painful. This can happen when a tooth cracks or breaks or when a crown or filling falls out. If a tooth cracks or breaks after normal business hours and a nerve isn’t exposed, the issue can probably wait until you make an appointment with our Scotts Valley dentist the next morning. But if the nerve is exposed, this is considered an emergency because of the associated pain and damage that could occur.
Severe tooth pain that won’t go away
Since teeth aren’t designed to hurt, it’s usually telling when they do. The pain could point to something serious like an exposed tooth nerve, decay or an abscess, which is an infection that often leads to severe toothaches. If you have a throbbing toothache that won’t go away, call our office right away, even if it’s after normal business hours. An abscess can be serious and even turn deadly if the infection spreads to your heart or brain, so it’s imperative you do not ignore your tooth pain, even if over-the-counter medications seem to take the edge off. When in doubt, have our dentists check it out!
EMERGENCY DENTIST IN SCOTTS VALLEY, SANTA CRUZ, AND LOS GATOS, CALIFORNIA
Teeth, unfortunately, don’t wait for convenient times to develop issues, and a lot of times, those issues need emergency treatment from a qualified professional. At Ebrahimian Integrative Dentistry, you can call our office for help 24 hours a day, seven days a week. After accessing your issue, we will work hard to provide the treatment you need at exactly the time you need it. Be sure to save our number in your phone — (831) 824-5111 — to call to schedule appointments and in case of an emergency.
