Dental Emergencies in Houston, TX

Having a dental emergency can disrupt your life. The trouble is that when you have a dental emergency, it is important to get urgent dental care right away. Still, it is only sometimes possible to find an emergency dental center, particularly if the emergency happens late at night or on weekends. Finding a dentist is always best, but that doesn’t mean you are completely out of options if you can’t.

When you need immediate treatment, you should call your dentist right away, but if you can’t be seen right away, there are ways to manage the pain from your dental emergency so that you can make it to your appointment. You can find a freestanding ER or emergency clinic like ours here at Ascent ER. Though we don’t treat dental emergencies themselves, we can make sure that you are not in danger of serious injury and can prescribe pain medication to manage the pain until you can reach an emergency dentist near you.

To help you deal with your sudden dental emergency, we have some tips you can use at home to manage your dental emergency.

Tips For Treating Your Dental Emergency At Home

When you can’t get emergency dental work right away, you need to do what you can to prevent your problem from worsening. The most common types of dental emergencies are toothaches and broken teeth. Here are some tips for dealing with the situation until you can find an emergency dental center or visit your primary dentist.

Avoid Hard or Sticky Foods and Too Hot or Too Cold Beverages

When dealing with a dental emergency, the last thing you want to do is aggravate the situation by eating or drinking things that can worsen it. Hard foods make it more likely that you will damage a tooth, and if you are already in pain, you want to watch what you eat. Stay away from sticky foods because they can become stuck in your teeth and aggravate a problem.

When you have a dental emergency, you could also experience sensitivity to hot or cold. It’s a good idea to stick with room-temperature beverages so that you don’t risk further harm and making an already painful situation even worse.

Reduce Swelling and Keep the Area Clean

If you know exactly where the pain is coming from, then it makes it easier to treat it from home. A cold compress or ice pack can help reduce swelling and thus reduce pain. If you have an open wound or area that is causing you pain, it can also help to rinse the area with salt water or an antibacterial mouthwash. This will help keep the infection from spreading and diminish the pain until you get proper treatment.

Use Over the Counter Medication

If the pain doesn’t get any better over time or gets worse, even if you keep the area clean and treat the swelling, you can try using anti-inflammatory drugs and over-the-counter pain medication to manage the pain for a time. This way, you can sleep or do the things you need to do until you can make it to the dentist.

Visit Your Local 24-Hour Emergency Room.

If all other options don’t work, you can visit your local ER, like Ascent ER, and we can prescribe something to help manage the pain better than over the counter.