Dental trauma can affect your dental health and your overall health. A serious injury to a tooth can cause an infection to get into the bloodstream where it can travel to the body’s vital organs. To keep an injury like a knocked-out tooth from progressing, it’s important to see an Emergency Dentist promptly after the trauma occurs. It’s also important to know the actions to take until you can see the emergency dentist. Use the following tips to help your knocked-out tooth.
When you first lose a tooth, retrieve the tooth. Hold the tooth by the crown. The crown is the visible part above the gum-line. Don’t dangle the tooth by the roots or other fragile tooth parts. Avoid shaking the tooth or moving it too much. A knocked-out tooth has a good chance of being re-implanted if you can see a Dentist in Allentown within 30 minutes to an hour of the injury occurring. Carefully rinse the tooth off to rid it of dirt and debris. To do this, place a small towel at the bottom of your sink. This will cushion the tooth if you drop it and keep the tooth from falling down the drain. With a low stream of warm water, rinse the tooth. As you are cleaning it, don’t touch the roots even if they are dirty. Let the water clean away any foreign material.
After rinsing the knocked-out tooth, place it back into its socket. This will provide a safe storage place as you transport the tooth to your dentist in Allentown. Even if the tooth sticks out slightly, put it back in its socket. Gently bite down on a piece of gauze or moist tea bag to hold the tooth in place. If the tooth won’t go back into its socket safely, place the tooth in a container of milk. You can apply a compress to the outside of your mouth to help with swelling and pain. Also, take an over-the-counter medication such as acetaminophen for pain according to the manufacturer’s directions. Get to your dentist as soon as possible.
Taking these steps before you see your dentist in Allentown will help lessen pain and swelling. It will also stop the progression of any damage to the affected area and increase your chance of having the tooth re-implanted. Your dental health is very important to care for your teeth when they are injured.
