My child’s toothache: When do I need an emergency pediatric dentist?
3 min readIn the life of a child, there may come a time for the need of an emergency pediatric dentist. Please feel free to visit the page of emergencydentistbrisbanedr to know more about pediatric dentistry.
Instances when your child would need an emergency pediatric dentist
A parent would always want their child to be happy and live a pain-free life. However, there are some times when pain strikes, and pediatric dental emergencies occur. These are the times when a pediatric dentist would be needed.
Toothache. Even children experience toothaches, no matter how careful parents are with monitoring their brushing, flossing and eating habits. These toothaches rarely happen without a cause. Some of these causes include tooth fractures, trauma to the teeth and the eruption of wisdom teeth, for older children who are in their adolescence already.
Dental intrusion. This refers to when a tooth is pushed into the jawbone of the child. Sometimes, when a child is playing, they may fall and experience dental trauma that is strong enough to force a tooth into the jawbone. In some extreme cases, the trauma might even be strong enough to injure the tooth’s socket and ligament.
Knocked-out tooth. It can also be called a dental avulsion. Knocked-out teeth have to be reported to a dentist right away because the dentist can work on re-implanting the knocked-out tooth. The dentist will have to analyze if the tooth can be put back, or if there is irreparable damage done to the roots of the tooth. If the tooth that was knocked out is a milk tooth, it would not be so much a priority, but if it is a permanent tooth, the child would have to be brought to a dentist within an hour for the best chances of saving and re-implantation of the tooth.
Broken tooth. Broken teeth can cause extreme pain for children. When brought to the dentist, they may need to have a dental x-ray to know the extent of the damage to the tooth, and also have the tooth fixed with a sealant.
Tooth displacement. This could refer to teeth that have become misaligned after trauma. These teeth would need immediate attention from a dentist because in most cases, the teeth have become dislodged from their sockets.
Root fracture. A root fracture is not usually visible from visual inspection alone, and would require an x-ray to be taken if the child’s discomfort makes a dentist suspect a root fracture. In the worst-case scenario, the tooth will need to be extracted.
What you should do
In case your child experiences a trauma, check their teeth and ask them if they hit their head or teeth during the trauma. If not, then most likely, there was nothing serious that happened and you do not need to see an emergency pediatric dentist. However, if your child is complaining of tooth pain, or suspect that they have experienced once of the emergencies listed above, it would be a wise idea to take them to see an Advanced Dental Care dentist in Dubbo, NSW.