Barrie dentist: dental emergencies and their wake-up call

Need a Barrie emergency dentist?  See this post on dental emergencies.  Not a weekend goes by where we do not get a call to our emergency dentist number (705.733.0880) asking for help with a toothache or some other oral pain.  Toothaches happen.  We get it.  But, it doesn’t have to be that way!  Read on for context…

We can do better than to just leave things up to fate.  Many of the toothache emergency calls we receive follow a remarkably similar pattern: pain of a few days’ duration, now excruciating and unbearable.  Usually, there is pain on biting on the tooth, and there is often worsened pain with cold or hot liquids.  The tooth is now keeping the patient from sleeping, or it is waking him/her up from sleep.  Whatever the problem, the pain is now making any further delay impossible.  Invariably, we will tell people that an examination as soon as possible is in order, and sometimes we will call in an antibiotic if it will help.  At the examination, we will usually see a broken tooth either from fracture or decay (or both), and the options available will be a tooth extraction or a root canal procedure.  After discussions about sedation or cost, we schedule treatment for the tooth.

This is fine for the tooth, but what about the next steps?  If there are other problems in the mouth, do we leave those for a later time when they begin to hurt?  Does this inevitably lead to a pattern of recurring tooth loss or costly dentistry?  Our rhetorical questions obviously point to “no” as the answer.

Once an emergency has been dealt with and there is no more dental pain, it is often time to devise a long-term plan for the teeth.  This will enable someone to take control of the fate of his/her mouth and have the confidence that any threats to the structures of the mouth (teeth/gums etc.) have been minimized.

We begin with a complete oral examination.  During this appointment, we will identify a person’s desires, concerns, and basically get a “wish list” of items to address.  Also, we will look at the gums, teeth, bite and joint, and aesthetics and formulate a diagnosis and treatment plan for each.  Finally, by merging a patient’s desires with our treatment plans, we can arrive at a unified vision of how we would like things to proceed.  If things are unrealistic, will make that clear.  If there are options (and there usually are), we can provide some ideas.  Regardless, we will set someone on a path towards eliminating decay, fractures, infections, drifting of teeth, gum disease, bite problems, or embarrassing appearances.  Not only that, we will also implement preventive measures so that these things do not happen again.

In a sense, everything we recommend after the cavities and gum problems are addressed (which are the things that people can easily understand) is prevention.  And prevention is always preferable to dealing with things after they have happened.  A toothache is frequently the wake-up call – if you have something like this going on in your mouth, have it looked at by a Barrie dentist (even if it stops hurting on its own), and take some action to prevent any further toothaches!  Ultimately, it will cost you less in the way of money, or teeth.

For an overall long-term plan for your mouth, please contact us!  We’d love to be your Barrie dentist.