When You Need Emergency Dental Care

The hospital emergency room is the first place people consider when faced with an emergency. Urgent care facilities are also at the top of the list. When the emergency involves tooth pain or oral trauma, you may want to reconsider. Emergency dental care is best handled by a dentist.

Limited Care
While hospital emergency rooms are well equipped to handle most emergency situations you may encounter, they fall short in regard to adequately addressing dental emergencies. Problems with the teeth can affect other parts of the head and neck. In the case of temporomandibular joint disorder, referred pain can reach as far as the shoulder. Unless you know your pain is associated with a tooth or your jaw, the doctors in the emergency room may go down the wrong path looking for an answer to a problem that may not exist.

More importantly, it is exceedingly rare to find an emergency room that is equipped to handle a dental emergency. The necessary tools and expertise are rarely found in the average ER or urgent care facility. Emergency care doctors do all they can in these situations, which is usually prescribe pain medication and/or antibiotics and tell you to make an appointment with your dentist as soon as possible.

Time Is Ticking
When you have a dental emergency, having it addressed properly is very important. If a tooth is knocked out, there is a small chance that it can be put back in place and salvaged – but time is of the essence. A severe toothache could be the result of an infection in the nerve center of the tooth. Pain medication may relieve the pain, but the infection could spiral out of control, causing serious health problems.

A dental emergency should always be handled by a dentist if at all possible. When you call in your emergency to a dentist, if there is specific care to be taken until you can reach the office, it will be given to you. When you are in the dental office, all the necessary tools and equipment are right there to take care of the problem. Your emergency dentist has the expertise to treat your trauma for the best outcome.

When you or a family member has mouth trauma, whether it is a severe toothache, a knocked-out tooth or some other injury, call your emergency dentist. Contact Sacramento Emergency Dentist and get your dental emergency treated quickly and properly.