Most everyone has a first aid kit handy, especially if they have kids or are very active, but do you have a dental emergency kit? You might not think that this is an important thing to have when everything is just fine, but one dental emergency is enough to scare you into wishing that you had a kit available to handle the issues that could arise. There does not need to be anything fancy about this kit – simply a container with a few important tools will be enough to get you through any dental emergency.
Items to Have on Hand
When you experience a laceration in the mouth, knocked or chipped tooth, and/or a severe toothache, you will be grateful that you have the following items on hand.
– Sterile gauze or cloths – Before you put anything in your mouth, whether it is to stop the bleeding or to control the pain, you want to make sure that it is sterile. The more germs you put in your mouth during a time of crisis, the worse the outcome may be. Having plenty of sterile gauze pads handy can help you to apply pressure if your mouth is bleeding excessively; give you something sterile to grab a knocked out tooth with; or give you something to make a cold compress with to control the pain.
– Sterile container – If a tooth is knocked out or even chipped, gathering the pieces or the entire tooth is essential. What is also important is how that tooth or fragments of the tooth are handled. You should not pick it up from the roots, only the crown. They must then be placed in a safe, moist place. With a sterile container on hand, you can place the tooth in milk or your own saliva in the container until you can be seen.
– Ice pack – Almost any type of dental emergency will be painful. Ice can typically help to minimize that pain and as an added benefit, can help to minimize swelling.
These three items are all that it takes to set up an appropriate dental emergency kit. It saves you from experiencing even more panic when the emergency occurs and you are unable to find anything suitable to handle the situation. It is also a good idea to keep our phone number in there so that once things are calmed down, you can give us a call so that we may direct you on the next step to take to rectify the problem that has occurred.
