How To Go About Emergency Dentistry at Home

Dental emergencies do not ask for permission before they attack. At any given point in your life, you may have an urgent oral problem at hand. The worst kind of emergency is the one that is not only painful to bear but happens at an inconvenient period in your life. Sometimes, you have no idea where to begin regarding managing your oral problem. Lucky for you, we have several tips that can help you handle your oral emergencies the best way possible. If anything, you can bank on the fact that our dentists in Pflugerville TX approve if the following tips.

What Are Dental Emergencies?

They are dental problems that present themselves at the highest level of discomfort and severity. Oral emergencies are urgent problems in your oral cavity that necessitate immediate attention by a dental expert.

It is hard to explain to you what an oral emergency is unless you have been through it before. Patients struggle to set apart a typical oral problem from an oral emergency. This has led the Dental Association to a point of listing down a couple of oral problems that merit as oral emergencies.

What Counts As A Dental Emergency?

Before you make a rushed decision to visits an emergency dentist near you, consider the following pointers as useful for detecting whether or not you have an oral emergency at hand.

• Pain levels – when pain is unbearable, then it counts as an emergency.
• Severity – how severe is your oral problem? Is it beyond your ability to manage the problem?
• Level of urgency – something is urgent if you cannot hold on for normal business hours to visit a dentist near Pflugerville TX. If you have a hard time holding it together until the morning or after the weekend, then that is an oral emergency.
• Risk assessment – while this is best done by a dentist near you, you can assess the risk level of the oral problem. Does the problem put your entire oral health and overall body health at risk of infection?

Once you have a level of certainty with some of the questions enlisted above, then you know you have an emergency at hand. To further blur the gray area of uncertainty, consider the following oral problems as dental emergencies:

• Excessive bleeding – the body and the mouth have a mechanism for controlling bleeding. If your bleeding does not slow down, you need immediate medical assistance.
• Excruciating pain – pain should be bearable, to say the least. However, when your nerves are damaged, you may have to bear with pain that is beyond your pain threshold. If the pain is holding you back from going about your normal life’s activities, then you know not to wait before you see a dentist.
• Missing parts – this is usually regarding losing a tooth. A knocked-out tooth is both painful and risky. You never know what other parts of your mouth were hurt during the knock-out.
• Strange anomaly – anything that is out of the norm in your oral cavity should worry you. This includes having foreign objects stuck in your mouth, bones sticking out the wrong way, broken oral appliances, to mention a few.

What To Do During A Dental Emergency

Even with such a breakdown of dental emergencies, you will still get overwhelmed when you have one happening to you. The challenge is that those oral problems manifest differently on patients. Therefore, your condition might be far much worse than that of another. Besides, the possibility of progression is usually very high with dental emergencies. While there is no perfect way of handling them, here are some tips on how to deal with your oral emergencies at home:

• Put gauze on it – gauzes are meant to help control bleeding and encourage the formation of a blood clot. When you are bleeding excessively, place the gauze at the affected area and observe the behavior of the wind thereof.
  Cold compress – this is a great way to reduce swelling as well as alleviate pain and discomfort.
• Disinfect – a glass of warm salty water will help rid off of bacteria in your mouth. This can help slow down the progression of the infection.
• Call your dentist – if there is nothing else you can do, at least be sure you do this one. A dentist can not only get a solution to your problem, but he/she will guide you through caring for your problem before you get to a dental facility.