Monday, August 24, 2015

A Simple How To Find An Emergency Dentist

Emergency DentistWondering how to find an emergency dentist? You would not be alone because every year thousands of people find themselves in exactly the same predicament. Dental accidents happen all the time and usually when we are least expecting them. This leaves the person in a bit of a panic, wondering how to find an emergency dentist. In the case of a child being injured, playing sports, for example, the need to quickly identify and reach out to an emergency dentist becomes even more important. There are several ways you can find an emergency dentist. Our recommendation is to be proactive and start the search before you ever have the need for these kinds of service. There are a few dentists that offer emergency dental treatment but, unlike hospitals, not all dentists are able to offer emergency medical treatment. You should start your search by talking to your provider.

If you already have a dentist and they do not provide you with dental care in an emergency situation, they will probably have a recommended dentist that they work with who does. Naturally, if that does not work, you can talk to friends and family about their dentist and seek out the ones that do offer emergency dental care. The other option on how to find an emergency dentist is to do a google search, looking for an emergency dentist. This can be hit and miss sometimes so you will want to actually call the dentist office to find out if they do offer emergency dental services. We recommend you read reviews and testimonials before picking your emergency dentist. This can only be done if you are working proactively to select an emergency dentist before the incident occurs. Once you have identified who your provider is, you will want to make sure that they are covered by your insurance. We recommend writing them down along with their contact information in an emergency contact list. That way when, and if, an emergency dental situation arises, you will not be wasting precious time looking for a provider.

People often wonder what to do in certain emergency dentist situations while they are trying to figure out how to find an emergency dentist. Here are a few tips –

For a severe toothache: Take a recommended dose of an over the counter pain reliever, then rinse your mouth out with warm water. If something is stuck in your teeth, try to extract it gently using floss and without using a sharp object. You can also apply a cold compress if the outside of your mouth is swollen.

A chipped or broken tooth: Find the parts of the tooth, as many as you can, and place them into a container with cool milk. You will want to make sure to stem any bleeding that may be occurring with gauze, placed with light pressure for approximately 10 minutes or until the bleeding stops.

Lost filling: Place a piece of sugarless gum into the cavity as a temporary measure. Do not use gum that has sugar as it will cause you additional pain.

In each of these scenarios, you want to have the number of your emergency dentist handy and reach out to them as soon as you have taken these temporary measures.

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Tuesday, August 4, 2015

How a Redwood City Dentist Can Improve Your Experience With Dental Care

Redwood City DentistAs a Redwood City dentist, we provide superior dental care and do so in a way that is gentle. This way, you can receive the care that you need without discomfort.  We also use medication and sedation when necessary to ensure that you can remain calm and relaxed during your appointment.  Sedation dentistry is one of those advances in dental medicine that is a huge blessing for a large number of patients. For years, people have been avoiding the dentist office in record numbers because of a fear known as dental anxiety. We are well aware of what dental anxiety does to a person, leaving them in a panic. This panic is so deep that for over 26% of affected people, it translates to them never being able to come in and see a dentist until they have a dental emergency. Sometimes even a dental emergency is not enough to motivate these folks past their fears to come in and see a dentist. This is a serious issue when almost half the people in the world are so afraid of the procedures at the dentist office that they are willing to risk pain and discomfort rather than coming in. Sedation dentistry can correct this by providing you with an alternative to living with the fear, in the form of sedation.

Sedation and dentistry are not new concepts working together. We have used sedation for many things, including procedures that involve a lot of work or in situations where it takes less time to have the patient asleep. Common examples of dentists using sedation are when we do a wisdom tooth extraction or a root canal. Today, however, we have expanded the scope of using sedation with dentistry so that we can help you to alleviate fears, even when you are coming in for less intrusive work. The one thing that you need to be aware of is the fact that we need to evaluate what you are having done, how much fear you have, and how much sedation you are going to need for the procedure.

As a Redwood City dentist and provider of oral surgery, there are four types of sedation that we make the most use of. Our preference is always to use the first three in the case of less intrusive procedures because we do not want to over use general anesthesia. The first, and most commonly used, type of sedation dentistry is called minimal sedation. In this state, you would be fully awake and also completely relaxed. The second state of sedation that we use is known as moderate sedation. When you are under moderate sedation, you will still be conscious but will be slightly more affected. You will probably slur your speech because you have a heavy tongue, and chances are, that you will not remember very much when it comes to the procedure. The next option is deep sedation, where you will be on the edge of consciousness. In essence, you will be asleep, but it will not be a very deep sleep. We can wake you up relatively easily if need be. Finally, there is general anesthesia, in which you are completely unconscious and will need to take some time to recover before being able to head home. As a Redwood City dentist, we are most likely to use this when performing a surgical procedure.

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