Your Essential Guide to Emergency Dental Care: Be Prepared When the Unexpected Happens
The best emergency is the one that never happens. At Brighton Park Dental, we work with individuals and their families from across southwest Chicago and the surrounding communities to protect their teeth, gums, and mouth from the damage that leads to an after-hours emergency call. However, we also understand that accidents and injuries can still happen even with the best preventative dental care. Subtle changes can be easily ignored, especially with all our lives being so hectic. These initial problems can snowball.
Whatever the case, we are here for you when the worst happens. Our priority is to get you out of pain and relaxed and, from there, Drs Aroon Pal, Nilay Patel, and Taylor Jemilo can recommend the most appropriate services or treatments to restore the oral health that also restores comfortable chewing, a full night’s sleep, and the ability to be your best at work or school.
But is it really an “emergency”?
Other services highlighted on this website may have clearer, more definitive reasons for their use; for instance, we can definitively say that dental fillings are for cavity repair or that Invisalign® is used to straighten teeth and correct a “bad bite.” Dental emergencies are different. Medical emergencies, in general, are not limited to a single condition, injury, concern, or need; rather, they encompass a variety of conditions, injuries, concerns, or needs. We have provided emergency care to patients with:
- Intense toothaches
- Painful facial swelling
- Partially or fully dislodged (knocked-out) teeth
- Deep cuts or other severe soft tissue injuries
- Severely fractured or cracked teeth
Of course, this is by no means an exhaustive list. This just gives you an idea of the types of concerns that could not wait and required emergency care at our office. In general, if you are concerned and the dental problem is interfering with your life in some way, contact us immediately. Better yet, contact us as soon as you notice any changes to your teeth, gums, and other parts of your mouth. We can help you avoid the pain often accompanying severe conditions and injuries requiring emergency dentistry.
How do you treat dental emergencies?
We largely want to get you comfortable and relieve pain or pressure immediately. We have many methods to help you relax and to ease an aching tooth. We can also advise on what to do when you have emergencies like a knocked-out tooth. The steps that you take in these situations can help to increase the odds of our preserving the dislodged or damaged tooth. In this example, you want to get the tooth in a moist and sterile environment ASAP. This might include placing it in a Save-A-Tooth® preservative solution or milk, which has properties that protect the tooth’s cells and support its survival. When placing the tooth in a container, take great care not to touch or disrupt the tissues connected to it.
Once at our office, the specific next steps will depend on the nature of your emergency. We may recommend performing an emergency root canal treatment, or an emergency extraction may be necessary for teeth that are “too far gone” and cannot be saved with root canal therapy or other measures.
Does emergency care cost a lot?
Without prompt care, these conditions will not go away. They will only get worse. Some dental conditions, such as abscesses, can spread to other parts of the body and even become a serious systemic infection – a medical emergency that requires care at your nearest ER. We prevent further complications and resolve the pain and other symptoms that can make it impossible to function when they get bad enough. We cannot overemphasize that emergency services may be prevented with routine visits to Brighton Park Dental. These visits are often 100% covered by most dental insurance plans (and we accept many insurances). For any services that are not covered, we can discuss alternatives like affordable financing through CareCredit® and LendingClub®. Whether you are overdue for a checkup or are concerned about a tooth or another part of your mouth, call (773) 801-5171 to speak with a member of our team in Chicago, IL, today.
