Any time your tooth hurts, it’s a dental emergency. Some dental emergencies are more urgent than others, but the sooner you attend to your tooth pain, the more likely you will save your tooth.
Your tooth can survive out of its socket, but only for a short amount of time. Through emergency dentistry, we can reimplant your knocked out tooth. But it’s most successful if done within 30 minutes of losing your tooth and the chances of saving it drop dramatically within two hours.
Here are some steps to take to save your tooth:
- Avoid touching the tooth root, and do not clean tissue from the tooth root.
- You can rinse the tooth with water, but don’t try to clean it. Let your emergency dentist handle the rest.
- Try to reinsert the tooth into the socket, but if you can’t, place it in milk or between your gum and cheek.
- If your tooth has loosened, but isn’t falling out, don’t touch it, and immediately contact your emergency dentist.
- If your tooth hasn’t fallen out, but you experience extreme sensitivity to hot or cold foods, have tooth pain that bothers your sleep and isn’t helped by mild pain relievers, you should contact your dentist immediately.