Some people don’t know if what just happened to their tooth or teeth constitutes an emergency. They worry the dentist will minimize the situation and tell them to call back during office hours.

That’s a bad idea, and that’s why we encourage our patients who think they may have a dental emergency to call us at (281) 985-5301. Let us decide if we need to see you immediately.

Otherwise, you’ll likely make a bad situation worse. For instance, if you knock out a tooth and we can see you within 60 minutes, there’s a good chance we can save the tooth. A tooth we see within 60 minutes can be attached to the adjacent teeth on each side with what we call a splint. This will keep the tooth in place for several days. If that happens, most teeth can reattach to the bone in about three to four weeks. Teeth with more damage are still savable, but they may require a little more time.

A knocked-out filling is another issue. It probably isn’t an emergency, but if you choose to not treat it by the next business day, you’re simply opening the center of the tooth up to the invasion of bacteria. Obviously, the tooth already had decay — that’s why it had a filling — and the filling may have come loose as more decay has formed. Leaving the filling out of the tooth ensures you’ll have more decay, and you could end up losing the tooth to extraction.

Dental insurance usually covers emergency care, yes. Patients should expect their normal co-pay, annual maximum, or deductibles to apply as they would with routine dental care.

It is rare for a dental emergency to be life-threatening, though every unexpected or persistent dental problem should be addressed right away. The most urgent situations may involve hemorrhage or excessive bleeding, an open fracture or wound, or severe infection. Symptoms such as fever, pain that does not improve with at-home treatment, swelling, redness, or heat in a localized area of the mouth, or oozing from an oral wound or tooth warrant emergency dental care.