Emergency Dentist – Lincoln, NE
Urgent Dental Care Right When You Need It
QUICK! Think fast: you just knocked out one of your teeth, and now you’re bleeding and in extreme pain. What do you do? Who should you call? Do you need to dial 911? When you find yourself in need of urgent dental care, the best thing for you to do is to immediately call your emergency dentist in Lincoln at Pioneer Greens Dentistry. Dr. Chris, Dr. Claire, and Dr. Pauley are experienced in these high-intensity situations and can give you the relief you need quickly. While a knocked-out tooth is a very common dental emergency, there are many other situations where you should call us promptly as well.
Why Choose Pioneer Greens Dentistry for Emergency Dental Care?
- Same-Day Appointments Available for Emergency Patients
- State-of-the-Art Facility & Highly Experienced Dental Team
- Dental Insurance Welcome & Flexible Financing Available
How We Treat Dental Emergencies
Depending on your situation, there are many things you can do when a dental emergency occurs. However, no matter the situation, try to remain calm and contact Pioneer Greens Dentistry right away. In fact, you should put our number in your phone right now so that you don’t have to look it up while injured! Those precious moments count while you are in pain. When you call, here’s what you can expect:
- We’ll schedule your appointment for as soon as possible: Oftentimes, we’re able to see our emergency patients on the same day they call us. Our highly experienced team will also give you first-aid instructions over the phone to help you until you reach our office.
- Your Lincoln emergency dentist will examine you: When you arrive at the practice, one of our dentists will examine you right away and take any necessary X-rays to better understand your situation.
- We’ll review our findings with you: Once we’ve gotten you out of any serious pain or discomfort, we’ll go over our findings with you and work with you to make a treatment plan to get your oral health back on track.
- You’ll get the care you need right away: As soon as you and your dentist have agreed on a treatment plan, we’ll get to work right away. Whether you need a filling, a root canal, or something else entirely, we’ll focus on preserving your teeth and helping you regain a healthy, pain-free smile.
The Most Common Dental Emergencies
A dental emergency is a situation where you have traumatically injured your teeth or gums and need to get urgent attention. The key indicator is pain. If you are in so much dental pain that you cannot focus on anything else, you are probably in the middle of a dental emergency, and you need to act quickly so you can save your teeth and reduce your discomfort. Give us a call immediately if you experience any of the following situations:
Should You Go to the ER for a Dental Emergency?
If you are facing a life-threatening condition, such as uncontrolled bleeding, a broken jaw, or difficulty swallowing, go to your local ER. For every other dental emergency, coming to us first will likely save you a lot of time, money, and discomfort.
In a dental emergency, you can easily feel panicked and want to go to the ER for immediate help. However, most emergency rooms are not equipped or staffed to handle these dental problems. In fact, most of the time, all they can do is prescribe pain medication and antibiotics. Instead, dental emergencies can be best handled by one of our experienced dentists, who can actually treat the cause of the problem. Plus, we’ll likely be able to see and treat you a lot sooner than a crowded ER.
Understanding the Cost of Dental Emergencies
At Pioneer Greens Dentistry, we believe that everyone should be able to afford the dental care they need, especially when they are in pain. That’s why we encourage patients to contact us immediately if they experience a dental emergency so that we can fix the problem before it causes more damage to their smile and their wallet.
What Happens If I Don’t Take Care of My Dental Emergency?
If you’re concerned about finances, you may be tempted to “tough it out” on your own and wait for your situation to improve. The problem is that it won’t get better without professional treatment. In fact, the longer you postpone getting an injured or painful tooth treated, the worse your situation is likely to be become. In other words, what requires a small amount of dental work now can require much more intensive, and thus expensive, treatment later down the road.
Does Dental Insurance Cover Dental Emergencies?
The answer to this question depends on many factors, including the treatment you need and what insurance plan you have. Overall, the more complex the treatment, the higher the cost. Similarly, insurance coverage tends to focus on early intervention and the most conservative option. When you come in with your dental emergency, our team can evaluate your dental insurance plan and let you know what you’ll be expected to pay out-of-pocket. We will be happy to work with you to make treatment more affordable with flexible financing.
How to Prevent Dental Emergencies
Whenever you or a loved one has a dental emergency, you can depend on the Pioneer Greens Dentistry team to take care of your needs quickly. However, it is always better to prevent the dental emergency altogether, sparing you from experiencing unnecessary pain, stress, and damage to your teeth. And believe it or not, protecting your smile from accidents and severe pain is actually rather simple. Here are some actions you can take to steer clear of dental emergencies in the future.
Maintain Good Oral Hygiene Habits at Home
A vast majority of toothaches can be avoided if you implement healthy oral habits into your lifestyle. What are these habits? You need to brush for two minutes twice a day and floss daily to clear out plaque and bacteria. Then, every six months, you need to come into our Lincoln dental office for a checkup and cleaning. These regular visits allow us to catch any problems while they are still developing—before they cause you pain. We also remove plaque that has calcified, stopping issues from developing down the road.
Don’t Bite Down on Hard Objects
Your tooth enamel is the hardest material in your body and is designed to help your teeth grind foods for digestion, but that does not mean it is indestructible. This protective outer layer can chip away or become worn down when placed under immense stress. When you chew on excessively hard foods or objects, you put your teeth at risk for cracking, chipping, or breaking. Some of these things to avoid chewing on include pens or pencils, fingernails, ice, popcorn kernels, hard candy, and more.
Wear a Mouthguard for Sports and Bedtime
Are you active in sports? A hard impact to the mouth can cause dental injury or even force a tooth to come out completely. If you play football, basketball, hockey, lacrosse, rugby, soccer, or any other sport where contact can occur, you need to wear a mouthguard to absorb that impact without damaging your smile. You can find many mouthguards in sports stores; however, they can feel uncomfortable or not give you the proper fit. Your safest bet is to get a custom mouthguard from us here at Pioneer Greens Dentistry.
If you clench or grind your teeth while you sleep, your teeth can wear down and weaken more quickly than normal. We can provide a special mouthguard that you wear during the night to separate the upper and lower teeth. As a side benefit, you may find that your jaw muscles also relax, alleviating any jaw pain or headaches you may experience.
Use Tools, Not Teeth to Open Packaging
Instead of opening packaging with your teeth, take a minute or two to locate and get the scissors out and open the container properly. Although finding the appropriate tool can feel inconvenient in the moment, treating a painful, preventable dental emergency is far worse! Your smile—and your wallet levels—will thank you for it later.
Dental Emergency FAQs
When something goes wrong, many questions can rush into your mind in a stressful frenzy. We are hoping to answer some of these questions for you, give you peace of mind, and let you know what to do. Read our responses below, and do not hesitate to contact us if you are experiencing a dental emergency in Lincoln and are not sure what to do. We will happily help however we can and schedule an appointment to address the problem as soon as possible.
Will My Toothache Go Away on Its Own?
In general, tooth pain does not simply just fix itself. In fact, if your tooth pain comes from decay, it will only get worse with time and must be addressed with a dental professional immediately. In some cases, severe pain may go away, but that is usually a sign that the tooth nerve has died, in which case, the entire tooth probably needs to be extracted. If you want to save your natural teeth, it is never a good idea to postpone treatment for tooth pain.
My Chipped Tooth Doesn’t Hurt. Do I Still Need to Have an Emergency Visit?
If you are not feeling discomfort in the immediate aftermath of chipping a tooth, you probably could wait a day or two if necessary for an appointment. However, you do need to see us soon after the injury because the enamel will not heal itself. The unprotected inner layers of your tooth could be vulnerable to breaking further or becoming decayed. As a result, a chipped tooth, whether it hurts or not, should be handled by a professional quickly.
How Can I Sleep with a Toothache?
Depending on when you call our office, we may not be able to see you on the same day as when your toothache starts. If you must endure a night with tooth pain, you can make yourself as comfortable as possible by keeping your head elevated to prevent excess blood rushing and pressing on the tooth’s nerve. You may also take over-the-counter pain reliever as directed, which should be enough to reduce your discomfort to sleep, and putting a cold compress on your face can also help numb the area.
Is a Knocked-Out Baby Tooth a Dental Emergency?
Yes, this situation is a dental emergency. Although baby or primary teeth are supposed to come out eventually, losing them prematurely due to an injury could cause trouble for your child’s smile. If this kind of scenario happens, we strongly encourage you to bring your child in for examination. We will not re-implant the tooth, but we need to make sure the permanent tooth under the gums is unharmed and is lined up to erupt properly.
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