5 Common Signs That You Need a Dentist For Emergency Care

An oral injury can be mild or severe, resulting from different causes, and appearing at any time of the day or night. You should seek treatment immediately if you have a dental injury or an alarming dental problem. Without going for the emergency dental care services that WPD Dental Group offers, you risk severe pain and discomfort, longer and complex treatments, extended recovery time, costly treatments, and severe complications.
Subsequently, below are signs that may indicate you need dental emergency care.
1. Debilitating pain and discomfort
There are various unidimensional scales that your doctor may rely on for assessing your pain level. But your pain level, whether moderate or severe, may also depend on your tolerance level.
If you feel persistent extreme pain, your dental problem needs emergency treatment. The pain may be too severe that it wakes you up at night, and it may radiate to your jaw, neck, or ear.
Extreme dental pain may also make it difficult for you to eat normally.
2. Bleeding of gums
Your gums may bleed regularly or fail to stop bleeding because of bleeding disorders, hormonal changes, ill-fitting dental appliances, infections, vitamin C deficiency, use of blood thinning medications, or leukemia.
It may be normal for your gums to bleed, especially if you brush your teeth too hard or floss improperly.
But, if the bleeding of gums is profuse and unusual, you require emergency care from your dentist.
3. Sudden loss of teeth
An accident or injury may make your tooth lose or be knocked out, leading to extreme pain.
So, emergency dental care can help manage your pain and increase the possibility of preserving and reinserting the knocked-out or broken tooth.
The American Association of Endodontists recommends following a few guidelines to enable the successful reinsertion of a knocked-out or broken tooth. As you wait to visit a dentist within 30 minutes after an injury, pick the tooth by handling the chewing surface, not the sensitive root.
Gently rinse a dirty tooth with clean water. Avoid scrubbing the tooth and using cleaning chemicals. You can then gently reinsert the tooth into its socket and hold it in place using your fingers or upper teeth to bite down.
If you cannot reinsert the knocked-out tooth in its socket, preserve it by placing it inside milk or your mouth, close to your cheek, as you go for emergency treatment.
4. Dental abscess
A dental abscess is a pus inside the teeth, gums, or bones holding the bones firmly in place. Infections often begin at the tooth’s root.
But when you do not treat the resulting cavities, the infections may extend to the pulp, a collection of connective tissues residing within the tooth’s center directly below the dentin layer.
An abscessed tooth may also come with other symptoms, such as swollen mouth glands, a bad taste in the mouth, and fever.
5. Metallic taste
You may experience a metallic taste in the mouth if you have previously benefited from metal fillings. The metallic taste often is felt when the metal fillings you have had for years start to crack or get loose.
A cracked or loose metal fillings leaves you susceptible to dental infections and cavities.