What is Considered a Dental Emergency?

A dental emergency refers to any oral health condition requiring you to visit a dental professional immediately. These conditions can involve intense pain, bleeding gums, broken tooth, broken retainer wire, lost filling, and swelling to name a few. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, you must seek out an emergency dentist immediately.

Statistics Canada, as of 2022, reported that more than 33% of Canadians did not visit a dentist in the previous 12 months. That means that almost 13 million people did not have any visit with an oral health care provider in over a year. Further to that, 20% only visited for emergency dental care. The best way to avoid a dental emergency is by going to your regular visits so they can catch any problem in advance of an emergency.

What Constitutes a Dental Emergency?

If we dive deeper into what a dental emergency is, you will find that it’s a potentially life-threatening situation that requires immediate treatment. It’s life threating in the cases of ongoing bleeding and spreading infection. The treatment would be to stop the bleeding, eliminate the infection and make sure no further problems happen and you return to health.

Bleeding happens from swollen gums (usually from tartar which is a hardened bacterial buildup around the gumline of the tooth), cuts or bruises or lacerations due to broken teeth or wires. Besides orofacial traumas, pain can result from a growing infection from a tooth abscess (very bad), or a lost filling which exposes the inside of the tooth and allow further decay. A knocked out tooth can present other challenges besides bleeding and pain because the clock is ticking on getting that knocked out tooth back in the socket and potentially saving it. In younger people, dental emergencies often arise from cavities, broken teeth or impacted wisdom teeth.

What are the Most Common Dental Emergencies?

A question we often get is which dental emergency happens the most? Let’s go over the top 4, what their consequences are and how to fix them.

1. Dental pain

Patients will often mention that tooth pain (especially below the gumline) is the worst pain they have ever experienced, even over a migraine. They report they cannot sleep or function and dramatically affects the quality of their life.

Sources: There are several sources of dental pain. There is pain due to tooth decay penetrating the enamel and reaching to the pulp. A broken tooth exposes the pulp immediately and even though has no decay, it will decay and potentially get infected leading to more severe pain. Infection pain leading to an abscess is the most severe and are a result of decay or trauma.

Preventive Measures: Decay is the easiest to prevent. At it’s beginning stages, it’s easy for the dentist to identify and remove it before it gets too deep. There may be the need for small  restorative fillings  and if you catch it early, modern technology means they don’t have to use a drill. The longer you wait however, the worse the decay and subsequent infection may be and it could result in either a root canal or at worse, full tooth extraction. At that point, your costs balloon with the magnitude of the treatment, that’s why we recommend to avoid that is to visit the office regularly.

2. Gum Bleeding

Bleeding gums are a result of gum disease or oral trauma such as getting hit in the face. Either way, it can be fixed. If it’s not those two issues, then it could be the result of an underlying medical condition.

Sources: gum disease is a symptom of hardened tooth plaque. Tooth plaque is a result of bacteria eating sugars and your mouth chemistry. Overtime, plaque from bacteria hardens or calcifies to tartar and either condition irritates the gums. This tartar is usually present at the gumline or under the gum line and separates the tooth from the gums and underlying jawbone including the tooth socket. This can lead to a loose tooth eventually, further bone loss and eventually loss of the tooth.   Trauma to the face can smash teeth in such a way to knock them out or cut the gums causing profuse bleeding.

Preventive Measures: It’s important to diagnose the gum bleed and through x-rays, the dental professionals can stop the bleeding and reverse the damage but getting that treatment quickly is key to reducing damage and thus reducing your overall bill.

3. Wisdom Tooth Emergencies

The problem with wisdom teeth is usually related to the fact they are growing in wrong and cannot pop up above the gum line properly without destroying the teeth next to it.

Sources: Pain due to inflamed gum tissue (pericoronitis) is a source of that pain due to wisdom teeth. If the wisdom teeth are impacted, the repeated injury to the adjacent teeth can also cause pain. This all can lead to infection and further pain and compromise your oral health significantly (and won’t go away).

Preventive Measures: Through a combination of regular teeth cleaning to wisdom tooth extraction , your dentist can treat your pain and future consequences. However, because all of this occurs below the gumline usually, wisdom teeth treatment must be diagnosed using a dental exam and x-rays.

4. Orofacial Trauma

Dental traumas happen frequently to people whether it’s from a car accident, sports, a medical condition or a fall. In children, the leading cause is sports. The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) indicates that children aged 17 years and younger represented over 80% of the total (sport and non-sport related) dental injuries that presented to U.S. emergency rooms from 1990 to 2003. Also, more males than females were likely to have dental injuries

Sources: Dental trauma causes the following problems in your mouth: tooth fractures, loose teeth, cut gums, pushing or pulling of the tooth into or out of the jawbone, or the tooth being knocked out completely. Please make sure you are detailed in your description of how the injury was caused when you visit the dental professional.

Preventive Measures: An emergency dentist will do a comprehensive check-up of the tissue, tooth and bone injury. This includes the consultation and any radiographs (x-rays) necessary.

The Importance of Knowing Your Tooth

Dental education is very important and at our clinic, we spend the extra time to explain and walkthrough the results of the checkup and x-rays with you and your family. It’s vital that everyone has at least a basic understanding of how their teeth work, and can help you understand your situation, what to do in a dental emergency, and get the proper treatment.

Basically, a tooth consists of two parts: a crown and a root. The top part of the tooth that you see when you smile is the crown, and the roots are housed in the jawbone tooth socket, located below the gums.

Let’s break down the crown. The crown consists of two layers that surround the inside chamber called the pulp. The outmost layer that you are familiar with is the enamel, and underneath that is the dentin. All the nerves and blood vessels are in the pulp.  The nerves and blood vessels connect the tooth and the tooth socket in the jaw and the rest of your body. The periodontal ligament is the last component and that is a tissue that holds the tooth in the socket connecting the root to the bone. It helps absorb shock from trauma and for chewing. Because everything is interconnected, infections and trauma that are located under the gums leads to dental emergencies.

 

References

1. American Dental Association
2. Canadian Dental Association
3. “Tooth issues can cause life-threatening conditions, advocates say, as feds move on dental care”, CBC News, Lauren Pelley, March 26, 2022.
4. “More than one-third of Canadians reported they had not visited a dental professional in the previous 12 months, 2022”, Statistics Canada, November 6, 2023.
5. “How does orofacial trauma in children affect the developing dentition? Long-term treatment and associated complications”, National Library of Medicine, Dent Traumatol . 2019 Dec;35(6):312-323. doi: 10.1111/edt.12496. Epub 2019 Oct 21.

 

Emergency Dental Services for Urgent Oral Care

Individuals encountering tooth-related problems may experience damaging consequences, or they may already be part of an existing disease with life-threatening potential. Your negligence can lead to serious ramifications, eventually turning into a medical emergency. But it doesn’t have to be that way! We offer sedation dentistry with full sleep so you don’t have to be awake during your appoint or remember it at all.

Cambridge Smile Family Dentistry’s emergency dental services cater to any urgent oral health requirements. Visiting an emergency dentist can help restore your teeth to proper health and function while also avoiding further spread and any detrimental effects that follow.

For any tooth-related queries & treatments, book a personal consultation today.

Your Consultation is Free

Request a free consultation today. We love new patients! Our free consultation applies for wisdom teeth removal, cosmetic dental work including: dental implants, crowns, bridges, and sedation. Call us now or book an appointment to speak with one of our experienced dentists.

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