What constitutes a dental emergency?

The ADA recognizes that state governments and state dental associations may be best positioned to recommend to the dentists in their regions the about of time to keep their dental offices closed to all but emergency care.  This is fluid situation and those closest to the issue may best understand the local challenges being faced.

This guidance may change as the COVID-19 pandemic progresses.  Dentists should use their professional judgement in determining a patient’s need for urgent or emergency care. 

Dental Emergencies are potentially life threatening and require immediate treatment to stop ongoing tissue bleeding, alleviate severe pain or infection, and include:

• Uncontrolled bleeding
• Cellulitis or a diffuse soft tissue bacterial infection with intra-oral or extra-oral swelling that potentially compromise the patient’s airway
• Trauma involving facial bones, potentially compromising the patient’s airway

Urgent Dental Care focuses on the management of conditions that require immediate attention to relieve severe pain and/or risk of infection and to alleviate the burden on hospital emergency departments.  These should be treated as minimally invasively as possible. 

• Severe dental pain from pulpal inflammation
• Pericoronitis or third molar pain
• Surgical post-operative osteitis, dry socket dressing changes
• Abscess or localized bacterial infection, resulting in localized pain and swelling
• Tooth fracture resulting in pain or causing soft tissue trauma
• Dental trauma with avulsion/luxation
• Dental treatment required prior to critical medical procedure
• Final crown/bridge cementation if the temporary restoration is lost, broken or causing gingival irritation

Other urgent dental care:

• Extensive dental caries or defective restorations causing pain
  • Managed with interim restorative techniques when possible (silver diamine fluoride, glass ionomers)
• Suture removal
• Denture adjustments or repairs when function is impeded
• Replacing temporary filling or endo access openings in patients experiencing pain
• Snipping or adjustment of orthodontic wire or appliances piercing or ulcerating the oral mucosa

Non-Emergency Dental Procedures

Routine or non-urgent dental procedures include but are not limited to:

• Initial or periodic oral examinations and recall visits, including routine radiographs
• Routine dental cleaning and preventative therapies
• Orthodontic procedures other than those to address acute issues (e.g. pain, infection, trauma)
• Extraction of asymptomatic teeth
• Restorative dentistry, including treatment of asymptomatic carious lesions
• Aesthetic dental procedures

If you are experiencing a dental emergency, or an unsure if your dental concerns are an emergency, call HollowBrook Dental at 719-633-0049 to reach our on call dentist.