Dental emergencies: what to do until you reach a dentist

Severe toothache

1. Rinse your mouth with warm water and floss around the tooth, in case something is stuck there.

2. Take an ordinary painkiller, at the dose on the leaflet.

3. Hold a cold compress against your cheek, 15 minutes at a time, with breaks in between.

4. Don't put aspirin on the gum and don't apply heat to your cheek.

5. Book an appointment as soon as you can. Pain that wakes you at night often means the nerve of the tooth is inflamed.

Broken tooth

1. Rinse your mouth with warm water.

2. If you find the broken piece, keep it in a glass of milk or water.

3. If it is bleeding, press a clean piece of gauze on it for 10 minutes.

4. If your face swells, hold a cold compress against your cheek.

5. See a dentist the same day or the next day. A piece that has been kept can sometimes be bonded back on.

Tooth knocked out by a blow

Every minute counts here. A permanent tooth put back in place within the first hour has a good chance of reattaching.

1. Hold the tooth by the crown, the white part, not by the root.

2. If it is dirty, rinse it for a few seconds with milk or saline. Don't scrub it.

3. If you can, put it back in its place and hold it there by biting on a piece of gauze.

4. If you can't, keep it in milk, in saline or in your mouth, between your cheek and your teeth. Don't let it dry out and don't keep it in water.

5. Go to a dentist straight away.

Abscess and swelling

1. Rinse with warm water with a little salt in it.

2. Hold a cold compress against your cheek.

3. Don't burst the abscess and don't apply heat.

4. Book an appointment for the same day. If the swelling spreads towards your eye or neck, you have a high fever, or you find it hard to swallow or breathe, go to UPU, the hospital emergency department.

Crown or restoration that has come off

1. Keep the crown and bring it to the dentist.

2. Don't glue it back on yourself with household glue.

3. If the tooth underneath is sensitive, avoid cold and sweet food.

4. Book an appointment within a few days. A tooth without its crown can break or shift.

Bleeding after an extraction

1. Bite firmly on a sterile gauze pad for 30 minutes, without lifting it to check.

2. Don't rinse your mouth or spit on the first day.

3. Don't smoke and don't drink through a straw.

4. If the bleeding has not stopped after an hour of pressure with the gauze, call the dentist who did the extraction.

When to go straight to the emergency department (UPU)

Go to UPU, the hospital emergency department, if you have:

• swelling that is spreading towards your eye or neck;
• a high fever as well as toothache;
• difficulty swallowing or breathing;
• a blow to the face, with fractures or loss of consciousness;
• bleeding that won't stop.

D'Institute opening hours and how to contact us

D'Institute sees emergencies during opening hours, depending on the time available and the type of emergency. Call +40 754 478 202 first, so we know you are coming.

Outside opening hours, in the evening, at night and at weekends, dental and oral and maxillofacial surgery emergencies in Cluj-Napoca are covered by a permanent on-call service at the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Clinic of the Cluj-Napoca Emergency County Clinical Hospital (Secția Clinică Chirurgie Orală și Maxilo-Facială, Spitalul Clinic Județean de Urgență Cluj-Napoca), Strada Cardinal Iuliu Hossu nr. 37.

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