When Should You Seek Emergency Dental Care?

seek emergency dental careWhen you’re experiencing serious dental symptoms, such as a cracked tooth, loose filling, or persistent severe toothache, it’s important to find an emergency dentist. It's important to understand the signs of a dental emergency, so you can seek medical help when necessary. At Allred Dental, we help patients at our San Marcos, CA dental office with dental emergencies year-round.

Signs of a dental emergency

Sometimes, it’s hard to determine if your symptoms need immediate treatment. When left untreated, many dental problems can impact your entire body. This means it’s important for you to contact our professional team at Allred Dental immediately when you’re experiencing a dental emergency. We are committed to helping you quickly get an emergency dentist appointment.

Some signs of a dental emergency include:

  1. Damaged teeth: While chips or cracks can wait until regular hours, a large break in the tooth may be considered a dental emergency. This break can lead to damage within the tooth and also increase your risk of needing a root canal later.

  2. Severe toothache: If your tooth pain or tooth sensitivity has worsened over time, it could signal an infection. In cases where a toothache won’t go away, it’s important to schedule an emergency visit with Dr. Allred to address your pain. When left untreated, an infection inside the tooth can get into the bloodstream and lead to dangerous health situations.

  3. Abscess: Any signs of an abscess warrant the need for an emergency dental visit. An abscessed tooth indicates that there is an infection at the root of the tooth. This will require a surgical procedure where the tooth is drained in order to treat it.

  4. Lost tooth: When you have lost a tooth, place it in milk to best preserve it. The faster that you can get your tooth back into its socket, the better the chances are that it will be functional again.

  5. Swollen jaw: Swelling in the jaw can signal an infection. Other signs of infection can include trouble breathing or swallowing, bad breath, and fever.

  6. Metal taste: When you’re tasting metal, an old filling may have cracked or loosened in your mouth. Emergency dental care can restore your tooth before any harmful bacteria gets inside it, which will require more extensive procedures in the future.

How do I know when I should seek emergency dental care?

Many injuries and symptoms mean that you probably have a dental emergency on your hands. At Allred Dental in San Marcos, CA, we specialize in urgent dental care. Our goal is to restore our patients’ oral health as quickly and as painlessly as possible. Gum injuries, lost crowns or fillings, and loose teeth are just a few examples of when you should schedule an emergency dentist visit. Depending on your particular dental emergency, our emergency dentist, Dr. Allred, may provide immediate treatment or possibly prescribe antibiotics to resolve your infection before any treatment ensues.

Ways to treat tooth pain

The type of treatment that we use at Allred Dental for emergency dental patients in San Marcos, CA will depend on each situation. After a thorough dental exam by Dr. Allred, he can recommend the best solution. Some of the common treatments for tooth pain and dental emergencies include:

  • Crowns or fillings

  • Extraction

  • Root canals

  • Topical solutions

  • Antibiotics to resolve an infection

Learn more on how to schedule an emergency dentist visit

You should always be aware of your oral health so you will notice if something doesn’t seem right. A dental emergency can progress to become something much more serious when left untreated. Any significant change in your mouth can signal a dental issue. When you have a severe toothache that doesn’t get better with time, this is a dental emergency. Call our professional team today to schedule an emergency dental visit in San Marcos, CA. Dr. Jeffrey Allred and his professional team are always committed to helping his patients with any dental emergency that may arise, even after hours. Our job is to restore your oral health and to remedy your symptoms as quickly as possible.

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