What Do You Do If Your Tooth Hurts on the Weekend?
Do you even bother about a toothache when you are engrossed in your everyday activities during the week? Your hectic schedule makes you overlook the toothache resulting from untreated infections, damaged fillings, infected gums, et cetera. However, when your tooth begins hurting on the weekend, you panic and run helter-skelter searching for an emergency dentist open on Saturday for help.
Tooth pain on a weekend becomes noticeable because you are not involved in your usual activities but are relaxed spending time with your family. The unexpected and excruciating tooth pain draws your attention, making you feel you are probably dealing with a severe problem. Wouldn’t things have been better if you had maintained regular appointments with your dentist for exams and cleanings? The professionals would have identified any issues in your mouth that might aggravate emergencies to provide prompt treatments. Now that your tooth is hurting on the weekend, you find yourself in a predicament to search for dental professionals working on Saturdays to treat your condition. Your situation also indicates you are in the throes of a dental emergency.
What Is Considered a Dental Emergency?
Any pain or injury in and around your oral cavity is a dental emergency needing prompt attention from a dental professional and none other. Dental emergencies can occur in different forms, but the most common are tooth decay, gum disease, clenching, grinding teeth, tooth fractures, dental abscesses, damaged fillings or crowns, et cetera. In addition, issues like a knocked-out tooth are also a dental emergency that needs immediate attention from a dentist whenever it happens.
If your tooth is hurting on a day when you are relaxing with your family, it indicates you probably have an untreated cavity or a dental abscess that needs immediate attention from a dental professional. However, can you find a dentist working on Saturday?
What Do You Do If Your Toothache Is Unbearable?
If you have an excruciating and unbearable toothache with symptoms that include sharp and throbbing pain in the tooth, sensitivity to hot and cold temperatures, swelling around the tooth, fever or headaches, and foul-tasting drainage from the infected tooth, it indicates you are a victim of a dental abscess resulting from deep decay inside a tooth.
Deep decay within a tooth indicates you have left a cavity untreated for long to allow the bacteria in your mouth to infect the dental pulp. Dental abscesses can assume life-threatening proportions unless they are treated immediately by searching for and visiting a dentist open on weekends near you to receive the treatment recommended by the professional. Proper identification and therapy for dental infections are essential to prevent their spread to other parts of your face and skull or even your bloodstream.
What Transpires When You Call Dentists with a Toothache on a Weekend?
When treating a toothache, the Saturday dentist in Stockton, CA, initially obtains your medical history and performs a physical exam. They will question you about the pain and its severity, the location of the pain, what makes it better or worsens it before examining your mouth, teeth, jaws, tongue, and other areas of your oral cavity. They might take x-rays and perform other tests depending on what the dentist suspects are the reason for the tooth pain.
The treatment you receive for the toothache will depend on its cause. If it is a cavity causing the toothache, the dentist fills the hole or extracts the tooth if required. You might need root canal therapy if the cause of the toothache is determined as an infection of the dental pulp because the bacteria in your mouth would have infected the soft center of the tooth. You will also need a dental crown to protect the tooth after root canal treatments. The dentist may also provide prescriptions for antibiotics if you have a fever or swelling in the jaw.
Tooth pain is generally tooth decay and is entirely preventable by maintaining excellent oral hygiene practices. You merely need to brush your teeth twice daily for two minutes each with fluoride toothpaste, floss once regardless of the time of the day, rinse your mouth with an antibacterial mouthwash, and see your dentist every six months for exams and cleanings.
If you still develop a toothache on the weekend after adopting the practices mentioned above, please do not hesitate to contact Morada Dental & Orthodontics to receive prompt attention for your condition.