When emergencies occur, you may or may not know what to do. When tensions are high, getting emotional can make the situation worse. If you are the person that’s injured, staying calm will help the situation more than anything.
Don’t Panic at the Sight of Blood
Dental emergencies can be very dramatic. The smallest of wounds can result in a disproportionate amount of blood. That’s because your face has many blood vessels. If you can’t see the wound to determine its severity, the first thing you need to do is get the bleeding under control. To do this, you need a first-aid kit.
Be Prepared
When injuries occur in the absence of the materials needed to treat them, it is a lesson to all involved. Every home should contain at least one emergency firs-aid kit that is regularly restocked when band aids or other items are removed. Your vehicles should all have a fully stocked first-aid kit, and you should know where the first-aid kit is located at your workplace.
With a proper kit, sterile gauze can be used to place pressure on the wound without the risk of infection. Without gauze, you’ll have to find the nearest clean cloth. In either case, the material can be placed over the wound while pressure on the wound is maintained until the bleeding has stopped or significantly decreased.
If you see that a tooth has been knocked out, have someone find the tooth as soon as possible while the injured person is treating the bleeding. Gauze should be rolled into a log shape and placed across the socket gap before biting down gently to apply enough pressure to encourage clotting.
If the tooth has been recovered, it should be handled only by its crown and it should go to the dentist with the patient. In these cases, the tooth has the most chance of being replaced into the mouth safely within 30 minutes. Place the tooth into the patient’s cheek pocket where it can be protected from further damage and get the injured person to the emergency dentist in Red Deer.
You might be away from home or in an unfamiliar location when a dental emergency like a knocked-out tooth occurs in Red Deer. Any Red Deer dentist can handle a dental emergency – as long as they can accommodate it in their schedule. If it is outside of regular office hours, it could be more difficult to find an emergency dentist. During an emergency, however, you don’t need to see the best dentist in Red Deer. You need to see an available one.
At Healthy Smiles in Red Deer, we aim to serve the needs of all patients who call in with serious injuries. Although we are able to serve many, some patients must be turned away if we don’t have the staff available. This is the case with most family dentists in Red Deer, so rather than call every dentist in the area, we recommend asking Siri to show results for “dentist near me”. In most cases, the results will indicate the hours of dentists in the area. It might be nice to see the dentist who does your dental checkups at this time, but emergencies demand flexibility to be treated in a timely manner.
If a child is injured, it is preferable to see a family dentist since they will have more experience helping children through this experience gently. This is not to say that general dental clinics don’t also have that capacity, but a dentist for children may be more at ease treating young patients.
Sometimes, dental traumas occur as a result of a vehicle crash or other motor vehicle incident. In these cases, it is important to assess the injured for head injuries and concussion before they prioritise seeing a dental clinic in Red Deer for help. Traumatic brain injuries can have life-changing impacts on people. Part of staying calm is retaining your ability to maintain perspective on the injury. If there is blood due to a tooth knock-out and also the possibility of head injury, always have the person assessed by the attending paramedics before determining whether it is safe to proceed to the dentist. If you are dealing with a dental emergency like this, any signs of cognitive problems such as scrambled speech, slurring or incoherence mean the patient should be assessed by an emergency room doctor in Red Deer right away.
Preventing Dental Traumas
Accidents can’t be eradicated but they can be prevented. When playing contact sports, always ensure to wear a sports guard to protect your oral health. Sports guards or mouth guards are an important part of a player’s personal protective equipment just like a helmet or shin guard. A little bit of effort to make sure you wear your guard is a small price to pay when it comes to preventing dental injuries.
