Emergencies
1. Toothache: (Pain provoked with food impaction)
When your child feels pain only after a meal and especially after a sweet snack this may be an indication that the child may have a tooth with a deep cavity close the pulp (nerve).
Action: Tell your child to brush his/her teeth and remove any food that is trapped into the cavity of the certain tooth using either a toothpick or dental floss. Bring your child promptly into our surgery to examine him/her and treat the tooth appropriately. When the pain is provoked with food impaction usually the tooth can be treated simply by a filling. However, if you ignore the symptoms and this provoked pain becomes repetitive, then it will progress to spontaneous pain. Then a more complicated treatment like a root canal may be necessary.
2. Spontaneous pain / overnight pain:
If the pain is automatic, meaning that it comes without chewing or drinking then things are more serious. It means that the cavity is too deep in contact with the pulp (nerve) of the tooth and that the whole nerve inflames.
Action: Give your child a strong intinflammatory medication such as Nurofen, Ponstan or Voltaren and call us. The treatment of choice in such cases of spontaneous pain may be a root canal treatment which means the removal of the inflamed nerve of the tooth or even extraction of the tooth, depending on several "dental factors".
3. Toothache with chewing:
In a case that the tooth becomes painful only with the forces of mastication (chewing), then the tooth may be abscessed. Usually, the abscess appears at the end of the root in the bone and it may not be evident with a naked eye. Because the abscess (red arrow on the right picture) is an accumulation of pus (liquish) when the patient is chewing the tooth is moving towards the bone and pain is caused. Also, the tooth may become loose.
Action: You need to call us the same day. An abscessed tooth can spread its infection in the surrounding soft tissue of the face and cause swelling of the lips-cheeks. In children this swelling may expand quickly towards the eye or the pharynx and if untreated it can cause serious infection of the brain or closure of the larynx and suffocation.
We’ll examine and treat your child accordingly but for sure in cases like these antibiotics are necessary to stop the course of infection.
