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Accidents happen. Sometimes illness strikes. One morning you might wake up to an unexpected pain in your teeth or gums. It could happen to anyone. But when something is affecting your oral health, you should never suffer in silence, dental health issues can worsen if left untreated.
And you don't have to drive all the way to another city to find an emergency dentist either. There's an emergency dentist right here in Winnipeg. If you have an urgent dental health issue like pain, discomfort or infection, come to Dr. Alanna Junaid's Winnipeg clinic right away. Our clinic offers emergency dental services for all your urgent dental care needs.
Our dentists are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
If you have a concern during business hours, please call our office in Winnipeg at (204) 888-3708 and ask to speak to one of our dental professionals. They would be happy to assist you, provide you direction or seek guidance from one of our dentists.
When a patient experiences a dental emergency, adherence to several steps should result in quicker care and relief:
This pain can be relatively simple or quite complicated. It can be simple because sometimes by biting or chewing, a person can tell which tooth is causing pain. More often than not, biting does not identify the offending tooth; and the pain can be referred to a distant location like the ear, the chin, the corner of the jaw, or even one side of the throat (the same side the pain is on). If a tooth is hypersensitive to thermal stimulation like hot or cold food or drinks or if spontaneous pain from the mouth occurs "out of the blue" or if tooth pain awakens you from sleep, then you most likely have a toothache and should see a dentist as soon as possible.
Painful, abscessed teeth can be caused by untreated tooth decay, a cracked or broken tooth or filling, or from a gum infection, especially in advanced gum disease.
Your mouth always has bacteria, but it is kept out of the tooth by the solid tooth enamel. If tooth decay erodes that enamel or you have a cracked tooth, bacteria can get into the living pulp inside the tooth. Your immune system fights back, sending in white blood cells to kill the bacteria. Pus forms from white blood cells, dead tissue, and bacteria.
There isn't any extra room inside your hard tooth, so it tries to drain out the tip of the tooth root in the jaw. A pocket of pus can form at the root tip. The abscess can appear on a dental x-ray. The pressure and inflammation from this abscess can be very painful.
It is a fact of life that dental disease can cause pain, and unfortunately many people suffer toothache in their lives at one time or another. The answer is, of course, to seek treatment at the earliest opportunity but there are effective analgesics (painkillers) that can be used to control toothache. Pain can be caused by any one of a number of conditions (read more on the causes here) such as caries (dental decay), a cracked or broken tooth, a fractured filling, exposed dentin, peri-apical infection (abscess), pulpitis (inflamed tooth nerve), sinusitis, pericoronitis, acute ulcerative gingivitis, a dry socket, or temporo-mandibular joint (TMJ) problems.
The two main groups of analgesics (medical name for painkillers) are opioid and non-opioid. The former are also referred to as narcotics, such as morphine derived from opium and are very powerful. Increasing doses give increasing pain relief but there are other potentially dangerous side effects to consider at high doses and these types of drugs are not commonly used in dentistry; and if they are used it is only for a short period of time, because of the dangers of side effects or addiction.
Non-opioid analgesics are generally used to control dental pain until definitive treatment can be instigated, and as an adjunct to dental treatment, either pre-or post-operatively. There is good evidence that taking, say, a dose of ibuprofen before a dental procedure will considerably reduce post-operative pain by blocking the production of pain inducing chemicals in the body.
Analgesics work either by reducing inflammation or by diminishing the brain's perception of pain through the nervous system. It is often useful to combine two different types of painkillers to increase the pain relieving effect whilst keeping side effects to a minimum. A warning note! Always stick to the dose prescribed or on the box (if bought over the counter). Certain medications cannot be taken by different groups of patients, especially if you take other drugs or have other medical problems. If in any doubt always seek professional advice prior to taking any medications. Better safe than sorry!
