Emergency Dental Care

Get relief from a toothache with your emergency dentist Dr. Haywood

Dental emergencies are, thankfully, rare but can be extremely disruptive to your life and unusually painful. We know how bad a toothache can feel and our practice is prepared to get you out of pain as soon as possible. Dr Haywood is available anytime for true dental emergencies for existing clients, their friends or families. New patients with emergency needs can be seen during weekdays during normal business hours based on our time availability. Should you choose to become a new patient in our practice a full work up with x-rays, exam and appropriate initial periodontal/hygiene care would be required.

We genuinely care about each person who comes to our office and will do everything we can to relieve pain during any painful dental crisis. Call us and our staff will often ask “ how soon can you get here?”. It is always best to call us early in the day if possible so that we can take care of you while not inconvenience our regularly scheduled person. Don’t wait until the end of the week or until you are off work. Offices including ours may be closed and not available to see you. Some dental problems can actually be life threatening. If you put it off you might end up in the emergency room. If you are in dental pain we would like to help. Call us and don’t wait for it to get worse.

5 Most common dental emergencies:

1. Dental Abscess – this occurs usually when the nerve of a tooth is infected with bacteria from a deep cavity or from a traumatic event in the past. Decayed and rotted teeth may not hurt immediately but they are really ticking time bombs. Bacteria may stay controlled for a period of time but a rotted tooth will often explode with pain with no warning caused by an abscess. We can see abscesses often on x-rays but they don’t always hurt right away. Bacteria from a dental abscess can spread thru the jaw and cause swelling as the infection spreads thru the mouth and jaw leading to a possible life threatening situation. The pain of an abscess can start with pressure upon chewing that could come and go or it may throb constantly. Antibiotics have been shown to slow abscess spread however what you really will need is to see a dentist for emergency treatment. Extraction or root canal therapy can solve dental abscess pain.
2. Cracked Tooth Or Filling – The stress of chewing accumulates over a lifetime. Cracked teeth start becoming evident as people age and perhaps grind or clench their teeth without knowing the risks. Teeth are designed to last a lifetime however grinding and clenching of teeth places excessive additional forces on your enamel both wearing the enamel away and introducing small crack and craze lines into the body of tooth. If a crack is along the gumline it is usually a HORIZONTAL fracture and we can normally save these with restorative and surgical procedures. If the crack is all along the length of the tooth it is usually a VERTICAL fracture. Some vertical fractures will split the entire root. In this case the tooth cannot be saved. We can extract the broken pieces for you and solve the problem that way. Some people get lucky and only have partial vertical fractures. We hope we can save your tooth in this case. We perform all the emergency dental procedures necessary to save a severely damaged and fractured tooth. We also can help you understand if a dental implant tooth replacement might be a better choice for you instead.
3. Facial Trauma-Knocked Out Teeth-Broken Jaw – Sporting accidents, motorcycle injuries, dog bites, slip and fall accidents, assault, or playground accidents can face you with a dental injury that the emergency room cannot help you with. If you or your child have a knocked out tooth, please put that tooth in milk and call us or any dentist immediately. Time is of the essence and we can save avulsed (knocked out) teeth if you can see us quickly enough. If only a part of your tooth is knocked out we probably can’t reattach it but bring it to us and we will see what we can do. We have the training and experience to treat avulsed teeth for any age person. We can also stitch up lacerations from these sometimes severe injuries. For a suspected broken jaw you need to see us immediately and we will perform a CT scan , find your fracture and propose the additional care you need.
4. Acute TMJ Disorders-Locked Jaw – Sometimes a jaw joint can experience trauma or sporadically acute pain requiring emergency treatment. Jaws can sometimes lock either open or closed. You really can’t live that way. We are here to help you with these troubling issues. TMJ Jaw disorders can exhibit as migraine headaches and severe pain that can totally interrupt your life. Frequently medications and emergency NTI splints can be made for acute TMJ pain. If your jaw is locked we can fix that nearly all the time if that occurs.
5. Simple Toothache – Broken Temporary/Permanent Crown-This is the point where we say that you should make the next available appointment with our front desk. Give our emergency line a call however most of these issues are best taken care of on regular schedule appointments. We can talk you thru any questions you may have. We know that dental work can pose an inconvenience however we are quite good at getting our patients in for their treatment swiftly.

Cost of emergency dental care-Baltimore County and Towson

If you have not been seen by any dentist or us for a while, the dental profession has a “standard of Care” that mandates we take necessary x-rays and perform a thorough examination of your condition prior to treatment. After all that,we are compelled to offer you all the options you have for your care considering the evidence we have collected. The cost of the x-rays and exam can be $140-300. The exam can be $125-200 in our area as well. Our fees are not the most expensive nor are we the cheapest. An emergency visit could cost you $400-$1000+ payable by cash or credit card. The good news is that once you have your x-rays and exam they will be useful for quite some time. You may even choose to get yourself back on track with your dental care here! Insurance is welcomed in our office but we will expect payment at the time of your service for emergency care.