After Hours Dental Emergency in Seattle?

Emergency Problem?

Due to safety and false allegation concerns it is not prudent for a doctor to come alone to the office after hours. Also, because it can be so difficult to find another staff member to meet with a doctor we only do text and phone consults after hours now. If you have a problem that can't wait until we are open again you have three options:

1 - Go to an emergency room or urgent care for assistance.
2 - Call or text us at the emergency pager for a consult where you will be billed for a Limited Exam.
3 - Use one of the many self helps given below.

1. Severe trauma - Call 911
2. Mild to moderate tooth trauma:
1. Permanent tooth knocked out
   • Replace in socket immediately if possible and go to emergency room or call the office.
   • If unable to replace, keep in skim milk or patient's saliva then see emergency room
2. Baby tooth knocked out
• Do NOT replace tooth
• See emergency room
3. Baby tooth hit, but not knocked out
• If there are torn gums, severe bleeding or pain then see emergency room
• Often the tooth is loose because it doesn't have much of a root left and would have come out soon anyway. To see when teeth normally fall out, see this chart.
• If tooth is within two years of falling out and it is very loose or wiggley, then you can finish working it out.
• If tooth is within two years of falling out and it is slightly loose or wiggley, it will either get more loose naturaly or go back to normal within a couple of days.
• If tooth is more than 2 years from falling out and it is significantly loose then see emergency room
3. Tooth pain without trauma:
1. Tooth pain that is very painful not allowing you to sleep or wait until next office day, call our office. This is often due to a cavity, bruxism or abscess. Text or call to discuss the situation and decide if pain killers or antibiotics are all you need for a couple of days.
2. Tooth pain that can be controlled with over the counter pain meds. Take 600 to 800 mg Ibuprofen/Advil every 8 hours and/or take 1000mg of Acetaminophen/Tylenol every 8 hours until office is open again.
4. Crown came off:
1. If you didn't lose the crown and can put it back on then do that. If you leave the crown off it can be very sensitive to cold water. A good temporary cement is tooth paste. Put a little tooth paste in the crown and put it back. Don't bite hard on the crown, but push it on with your finger. Try to eat on the other side to avoid pulling it off again.
2. If crown won't stay on, was swallowed, broken or lost:
   1. If you have it still, keep it somewhere safe
   2. If the tooth doesn't hurt or can be managed by not drinking extreme temperatures, email or leave a message at the office about getting in to fix it.
   3. If the tooth is very sensitive call our office.
5. Less frequent or severe items:
   1. Broken filling or tooth:
      1. if the tooth doesn't hurt then call or email office to set up an appointment to get it fixed when we return. Avoid eating on that tooth, especially hard things such as nuts or extreme temperatures such as coffee or ice cream
      2. if the tooth hurts a little, take ibuprofen or tylenol and follow item 1 above.
      3. if the tooth is very painful, call the office.
   2. Food stuck in your gums that is starting to hurt. As long as you don't have a significant infection or fever there are two good things to do:
      1. if the food is inbetween two teeth, tie a knot or two in your floss and pull the not through the teeth. This will often grab and pull out more food than normal flossing alone will
      2. use a waterpik to flush the area. This is often the best treatment, especially for fibrous food such as chicken or beef.
   3. Most other minor aches, pains, problems can be treated when the office reopens.
   4. Other questions of an immediate nature can be answered by calling our office.