After Hours And Emergency Dentist Sioux Falls Serve, 7 Days A Week
No matter what type of dental pain you’re experiencing, our emergency dentist office in Sioux Falls is at your disposal every day of the week to deal with your urgent dental problems.
We know how to tackle and treat a wide range of dental issues and treatments, be it a simple chipped tooth, a knocked-out tooth or dental trauma and facial swelling.
We are one of the most popular emergency dentists in Sioux Falls. Our surgery is one of the very few in Sioux Falls that is open for treatment seven days a week, all year round.
Emergency Dental Sioux Falls has been offering emergency dental services in Sioux Falls for over 18 years.
We are also available for after-hours emergency dental services. Our clinic operates on an appointment basis, so give us a call and we will do our best to suit your dental needs.
MGA Dental emergency dentist in Sioux Falls is made up of a group of dentists who are experienced in dealing with urgent dental emergencies. You can find the list of the most common dental emergencies that we encounter below
Have A Toothache?
In case you cannot reach us, please do the following.
- Take 2 x Nurofen (ibuprofen).
- Wait for three hours and then take 2 x Panadol (paracetamol).
- Wait for three hours again and repeat the cycle.
This should help ease the pain. Leave us a message and we will get back to you ASAP.
Chipped A Tooth Or Lost A Filling?
Chipped or fractured teeth, or previously placed fillings that are cracked or lost, will lead to food accumulation. As this initiates the start of dental decay, your teeth might get sensitive to cold and hot foods and drinks, as well as hot or cold air.
Pain while chewing is another symptom. With this in mind, you need to treat your teeth with caution. If left untreated, often the dental pulp within the tooth will get damaged which will result in severe toothaches.
Early repair of chipped teeth and lost fillings is crucial to having a healthy and pain-free mouth. Fixing a broken tooth can help prevent tooth loss and decrease the possibility of a toothache or infection with medication.
Recognizing Chronic Tooth Pain (A Toothache That Lasts)
There are dentists in Sioux Falls that don’t consider chronic tooth pain an urgent dental emergency due to the fact that it’s not a sudden occurrence and lasts longer. The reason for a lasting toothache, however, can be something rather serious like dental nerve damage, for example.
This type of problem definitely classifies as URGENT and should not be ignored. You should get a dentist to check your teeth as soon as you can.
Sometimes a lasting toothache might not be caused by dental problems, but it’s still good to go get it checked so you can find out what the cause is.
A chronic toothache can have a heavy negative effect on your work, keep you from getting proper sleep, prevent you from eating, and even affect your mood by making you depressed and irritable.
Knocked Out Teeth
To improve the chances of the tooth being saved MGA Dental suggests doing the following:
- Check the teeth by looking, use a finger if necessary.
- Try to locate any missing teeth or fragments.
- Only touch the crown of the tooth.
- Do not wash or rinse the fragment or tooth, not even with water.
- If possible, store the fragment of a tooth in milk.
Get to our Sioux Falls or Gold Coast office as soon as you can. You can also try to slip the tooth back into its socket. In many cases, it will slip right in. If it doesn’t, don’t try to force it. If you can manage to successfully put it back, then bit down on it gently just so that it stays in place until you can get to your emergency dentist Sioux Falls.
If it’s a younger child whose tooth was knocked out then it might be better not to let them keep the tooth in their mouth, as it could be easy for them to swallow the lose tooth.
Dentistry Treating Knocked Out Teeth
A simple treatment procedure is to put the tooth back in place. The dentist will use water to flush debris out of the tooth socket. They will then slip the tooth back into place.
The tooth may be splinted to bordering teeth with plastic resin and orthodontic wire. This will keep the tooth stable so it can reattach and heal properly without the risk of infection. What often does not heal are the nerves and blood vessels that were severed from being knocked-out.
When this happens, the colour of your tooth may begin to darken. This usually means you will need to have a root canal treatment.
Facial Swelling
There are a variety of reasons for swellings around the mouth. Common reasons include:
- Blocked salivary glands
- Medication side-effects
- Poor nutrition
- Vitamin C deficiency
- Gingivitis
- Gum disease
- Some oral cancers
If the swelling occurs quickly and is accompanied by pain, it could be an indication of a tooth abscess.
Should You Visit the Emergency Room?
As facial swelling can also be an indication of a serious medical condition, visit the Emergency Room immediately if you experience the following:
- Swelling that visibly increases
- Discoloration of the skin
- Swelling that spreads across the face or down the neck
-
Abscess
If you have a tooth abscess, it means that there is a pocket of pus that’s caused by a bacterial infection. The abscess can occur in various regions of the tooth for different reasons. A periapical abscess occurs at the tip of the root, whereas a periodontal abscess occurs in the gums next to a tooth root.
Abscesses are usually extremely painful and won’t heal themselves. This is why they need to be treated straight away. An untreated infection can put you at risk, as the infection can spread to the blood and other parts of the body. This causes sepsis, which is a potentially fatal condition.
How Is A Tooth Abscess Treated?
Your dentist or GP can prescribe antibiotics in order to reduce the risk of the infection spreading. It is important to know that antibiotics will not cure dental abscesses, so this is only useful for temporary relief.
As the source of infection remains deep inside the tooth, it needs to be removed in order to effectively treat an abscess. There are two ways this can be done. An infected tooth can be extracted entirely, or the infection must be drained.
If the infection is drained, the void inside the tooth must be cleaned and filled in to prevent further infection. This type of treatment is commonly known as root canal therapy.
Toothache in the Back of the Jaw
If you’re experiencing tooth pain in your rear teeth it may be a symptom of:
- Bruxism (also known as teeth grinding)
- An impacted wisdom tooth (third molar)
- Temporomandibular disorder (TMD)
Wisdom Teeth
The majority of adults have 4 wisdom teeth, also known as third molars. When one of your teeth doesn’t come up through your gums properly it’s known as an impacted wisdom tooth. These act as traps for food and become a place where dangerous bacteria can fester and cause infection around your gums over time.
Often, the patient’s jaws are too small to accommodate the 32 teeth in human dentition. As a result, many patients have misaligned teeth. This usually leads to unusual and painfully-positioned teeth.
As many wisdom teeth erupt after all the other teeth have positioned themselves, problematic is usually seen in patients above the age of 18. Many have opted for wisdom tooth extraction due to problematic wisdom teeth.
How MGA Dental Treats Wisdom Teeth
A consultation will involve X-rays or OPG (panoramic X-ray) and examination. This allows the dentist to determine which teeth are functional, and which ones need to be extracted and describe proper dental care. Often, all four teeth will need to be removed.
The procedure itself involves an incision to open the gum. Sometimes a small part of the bone may need to be removed to provide access for wisdom teeth removal.
At the first sign of discomfort, book an appointment before complications develop. Once complications have developed, the problem will be more difficult to solve.
Crown Came Off
Crowns may become loose if there is decay underneath them. This happens because the decay destroys part of the tooth, so it no longer has a tight hold on the crown or filling. These situations rarely require an emergency dentist.
However, once the crown is off, it can be quite painful. Your tooth tissue can be sensitive to temperature, pressure or air. In the event that you lose a crown, put it in a safe place and book an appointment to see us as soon as possible for your dental crown treatment.
You shouldn’t wait too long though. What is left of the tooth will not be as strong as your crown. The longer you wait, the greater the chance the tooth can get damaged.
Pain After Extraction (Dry Socket)
It is common to experience a “dry socket” after tooth extraction. A common belief is that dry sockets occur when a blood clot has failed to form in the hole left after extracting the tooth. Or the blood clot that did form has been dislodged.
This can interrupt the healing process as the formation of a blood clot plays an important part. Dry sockets are mostly associated with complex tooth extractions or ones that have been traumatic in nature. An extraction that involves the removal of bone from around a tooth in order for the dentist to access it would be considered to be more traumatic in nature than one in which this step would not be required.
You can reduce the chances of developing a dry socket by following your dentist’s recommendations. Dry sockets are more common in women (even more so in women using oral contraceptives), people above the age of 30, and smokers.
Dry sockets manifest themselves in a form of dull throbbing pain. This usually appears three or four days after the extraction of a tooth. The pain can be moderate to severe and often seems to radiate from the area of the site to the ear. Dry sockets typically create a foul odor or bad taste.
If you can see down into the socket and you can see exposed bone that appears “dry” without pus, then you’re likely to have a dry socket. Most times a dentist will place a medicated dressing into a dry socket as a way to help soothe and moderate the pain.
The dressing should be replaced every 24 hours until the symptoms subside, which can, in some cases, take several days.
Broken Dentures
Broken dentures are an urgent matter and are considered a dental emergency as they can cause a massive disruption to a denture wearer’s life. Without dentures, the patient won’t be able to speak and eat properly. Even though dentures can withstand the pressure of the jawbone, they can break for a variety of reasons.
A denture is vulnerable if you drop it onto a hard surface. It can also be damaged by heat if you use boiling water to clean them. See an emergency dentist immediately to repair your broken denture. We always work as efficiently as possible to ensure your dentures are repaired as soon as possible.
If the damage is extensive, it might take a little more time for your dentist to repair your dentures.
Root Canal Treatment
This treatment is used to repair and save a badly decayed or infected tooth. The dentist will perform urgent treatment procedures if they determine the nerve of the tooth is infected or the pulp is damaged. The procedure will involve the nerve and pulp removal, cleaning the inside of the tooth and sealing it.
Symptoms you might need a root canal:
- Severe pain upon chewing or application of pressure
- Prolonged sensitivity to heat or cold temperatures
- Discoloration (a darkening) of the tooth
- Swelling and tenderness in the nearby gums
- A persistent or recurring pimple on the gums
- Sometimes no symptoms are present
Alternative to a Root Canal
The root canal procedure is the dental treatment of choice at any dental clinic. An alternative is to go through tooth extraction and replace that tooth with a bridge, implant, or removable partial denture.
This will restore the ability to chew and prevent adjacent teeth from shifting. These alternatives require more treatment time and additional procedures on adjacent teeth and supporting tissues.
Lip And Gum Injuries
Trauma to the lips, tongue and mouth tissue is quite common. Cuts inside the mouth tend to bleed heavily because of the rich supply of blood to the area. If you have a cut in your mouth, rinse it with saltwater.
Apply a cold compress to the swollen or bruised lip. If there is bleeding, apply pressure with a clean cloth for at least 5 minutes. The ice pack will help limit the swelling, bleeding, and discomfort. You should seek medical care if:
- You can’t control bleeding with pressure and a cold compress
- You have a deep cut
- A cut crosses the border between the lip and facial skin
- The lip is punctured
- There are signs of infection
- Swelling of the neck or floor of mouth occurs
As many lip and tongue injuries occur during sports activities, it is advised that you use a mouth guard. The MGA Dental emergency dentist Sioux Falls team can create a professional, custom a fit mouth guard for you. Contact our office for more information.
Gum Disease Treatment
Have you got swollen or inflamed gums? Do you have a problem with bleeding gums when you brush your teeth? These are all possible signs of gingivitis, which is an early sign of gum disease. If you don’t get treatment for gingivitis, it can turn into Periodontitis.
Periodontitis is much more serious and can result in bone loss of the supporting jawbones if not given proper dental treatment. This can eventually result in the loss of teeth.
So if you’re noticing any of these symptoms, recognize them as urgent and get in contact with your emergency dentist Sioux Falls as soon as you can!
When To Call Us! What Is A Dental Emergency?
Often our patients are unsure if their problem is actually urgent and a 24hr dental emergency. Our general advice is: if you’ve got a toothache and you’re in pain, it’s a dental emergency! Give us a call straight away.
Even superficial and small dental emergency can affect the tissues inside the teeth. Quick treatment will improve the odds of saving injured teeth.
A sports injury with structural damage to the tooth, even if you aren’t in much pain, is still considered an emergency. Chips and fractures can affect the living tissue inside the tooth, which will cause you more problems in the future.
Our emergency dentists in Sioux Falls can prevent damage. The same applies to lost fillings and crowns. Even if there are no symptoms, the tooth has lost its support and it could become weaker. If pieces break off or crumble, you will need more extensive dental treatment.
If you go see the dentist right away, you’re looking out for your tooth and increasing the chances for the damage to be repaired with minimal dental treatment. Note that our after-hours appointments are reserved for emergencies only and will depend on staff availability.
Some appointments to see an emergency dentist in Sioux Falls may incur a call-out fee if the staff is required to return to the dental clinic. You will be notified of this fee when booking the appointment.