At some point in their life, everyone will likely have to visit the emergency room for some type of medical emergency. This may not be a very pleasant experience, but most people are familiar with what to expect of that process. On the contrary, not everyone experiences a dental emergency, needing an emergency dental appointment. This may cause some fear or anxiety for patients needing emergency dental care. However, there are a few processes and experiences that a patient can expect when being treated for an emergent dental problem, and knowing of these can help ease those initial fears.
- Expect An Emergency Exam
When you schedule an emergency dental appointment, you can expect to be penciled into the dentist office’s schedule as soon as they can. They understand the value of emergent care and will take that into consideration when scheduling. During that appointment, you can expect to have certain tests run that only obtain information regarding the problem at hand. The dental staff will spend more time on trying to find the source of your dental issue rather than focusing on your overall dental health, which is contrary to regular dental visits. If you are visiting a dentist other than your usual dentist, your dental history and medical history may be discussed as well. Overall, you can expect this visit to be more focused on your current issue and treatment of such rather than a complete dental workup.
- Expect To Receive Pain Relief
If you are experiencing a dental emergency, chances are you are experiencing quite a bit of pain. If this is the case, during your emergency dental appointment, the dental staff will provide you with dental anesthetics and/or dental sedation to ease the pain in the area in order to examine and treat the area. Even if your dental emergency is not particularly painful, anesthetics may still be given if the treatment of your issue could cause pain. Overall, the goal of your emergency dental visit will be to ease the pain and treat the issue, which can be done using dental anesthetics.
- Expect Temporary Relief or Fix
A dental emergency is just that- an emergency. It is not a situation that you expect to happen on a regular basis, if at all. Because of the urgent nature of the problem, dental staff will do their best to treat what they can in that initial emergency visit. This may not fix the entire problem that you are experiencing. However, this temporary solution can buy you some pain-free time in order to schedule a follow-up visit to treat the root cause. For example, if you are having an emergency dental visit for a broken tooth, the dental staff can reduce your pain and file the tooth to reduce the rubbing on the gum area, but a follow-up will be needed to assess if the tooth can be kept or must be removed.
Why Would I Schedule an Emergency Dental Appointment?
There are many reasons why a patient may schedule an emergency dental appointment. Below are some of those reasons to seek emergent treatment:
- Extreme dental pain from wisdom teeth or toothache
- Lost or broken filling, crown, or tooth
- Severe mouth or gum infections
- Constant bleeding from the gums or mouth
- Dental accident (lost tooth, broken tooth, jaw problem, etc)
If you are experiencing any of these emergent dental symptoms, reach out to Guillot Family Dental or your local emergency dentist. Their well-trained staff can help provide pain relief and temporary treatments for those untimely and inconvenient dental emergencies with ease.
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