We hold slots open every weekday morning specifically for emergencies. They are not overflow appointments squeezed in at the end of the day. They are reserved, and if nobody needs them they go unused. That is a deliberate cost the practice absorbs, because dental pain is not something that should wait nine days for the next routine opening.

Call before 10:00 a.m. and we will do everything we can to see you that day. If you are an existing patient, you will almost certainly be seen. If you are not, call anyway. We take emergency patients who have never been here before, and there is no expectation that you become a regular patient afterwards.

What counts as a dental emergency

Severe or worsening toothache, especially if it wakes you at night or does not respond to over-the-counter painkillers. Facial swelling of any kind. A broken or knocked-out tooth. A crown or filling that has come out and left a sharp edge or exposed nerve. Bleeding that will not stop after an extraction. An abscess, which usually presents as a persistent bad taste, a tender lump on the gum, or swelling.

Facial swelling that is spreading, particularly towards the eye or down into the neck, or any difficulty swallowing or breathing, is not a dental appointment. Go to an emergency room. A spreading dental infection is a medical emergency and time matters.

What to do before you get here

Knocked-out adult tooth

This is the one where minutes genuinely count. Pick the tooth up by the crown, never the root. If it is dirty, rinse it briefly in milk or saline, not water and not by scrubbing. If you can, push it straight back into the socket and hold it there by biting gently on a clean cloth. If you cannot, put it in a cup of milk. Then call us immediately. A tooth replanted within thirty minutes has a real chance. After an hour outside the socket, the odds fall sharply.

Broken or chipped tooth

Rinse with warm water, keep any fragments in milk, and use a cold compress on the outside of the face for swelling. If there is a sharp edge cutting your tongue, orthodontic wax or even sugar-free chewing gum pressed over it will hold until you get here.

Toothache

Ibuprofen is generally more effective than paracetamol for dental pain because the pain is inflammatory, provided you can take it. Do not hold aspirin against the gum; it burns the tissue and makes things worse. Keep your head elevated when sleeping, which reduces the throbbing considerably.

Lost crown or filling

Keep the crown, it can very often be re-cemented. Temporary dental cement from a pharmacy will hold it for a day or two. Do not use household glue of any kind. It contaminates the tooth surface and can turn a simple re-cement into a replacement.

What happens at the appointment

The first job is diagnosis and getting you out of pain, and those are often two different things. We will take an x-ray of the area, work out what is actually happening, and explain it. If you need to be numb before you can even have a proper conversation, we will do that first.

Emergency appointments are about resolving the immediate problem. That might be draining an abscess, removing a nerve to stop the pain, smoothing a fracture, re-cementing a crown or, when a tooth cannot be saved, taking it out. Definitive treatment is often planned for a later visit once things have settled. We will tell you clearly which category you are in and what the next step will cost before we start.

Outside office hours

Thursday evenings we are open until 7:00 p.m., which covers a lot of after-work emergencies. Outside opening hours, the answering machine gives an on-call number for genuine emergencies. Existing patients are given that number directly.

If in doubt, call. Talking through symptoms on the phone costs nothing, and a good proportion of the calls we take end with reassurance and an ordinary appointment next week rather than a rush in.