Happy President’s Day! We hope you are enjoying a quiet peaceful day. A fitting topic today is dental emergencies. A dental emergency can be as simple as your crown falling off your tooth and as severe as a tooth or associated bone breaking from trauma such as a fall, car accident etc.

Emergencies can happen at any time especially on a holiday like today. As Oral Surgeons we are trained to manage the most complex of dental emergencies from a simple cracked tooth to avulsion or loss of teeth to even bony fractures.

At Bowie Oral Surgery, we aim to be available for residents of Maryland and surrounding areas in the event of emergencies.

We are open M-F 8am – 4pm and open on Saturdays once a month from 8am  – 1pm. You can usually call and most times to be seen the same day.

Here are a few quick tips in the event of some common dental emergencies.

1. Tooth avulsion (tooth loss as a result of trauma). Keep the tooth in milk or saliva, to keep it moist until you can be seen by an Oral Surgeon, but avoid use of water. The tooth can usually be re-implanted successfully within 3o mins – 1 hr of avulsion. The longer the tooth is out of the mouth the less chance of survival after re-implantation.
2. Cracked  or loose tooth – If your tooth is cracked badly enough to cause bleeding or displacement from the socket, you will likely have pain. Take some advil and rinse with salt water to disinfect the area until you can get the the Oral Surgeon. We can reposition teeth and stabilize them to allow healing. Keep in mind, loose teeth may sometimes need to have root canal therapy in future to increase chance of survival and retention.

We hope these tips were helpful to you.

Enjoy the rest of your day off. If a dental emergency arises, please feel free to reach out to us.