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You can’t always put off seeing the dentist. If you have a simple cavity, it’s easy to wait to see the dentist for a couple of days. A painful cracked tooth is another story. We’re here to help you figure out what you should do if you have a dental emergency in Chicago. The more prepared you are, the quicker you’ll be able to deal with any serious dental issues.

What Are Dental Emergencies?

Just because you experience a little tooth pain or discomfort doesn’t mean you need to drop everything and see the dentist right away. Some dental issues require more immediate attention, whereas others can wait a few days or weeks. Here are some potential teeth problems that may be considered dental emergencies:

• Lost tooth
• Knocked-out tooth
• Loose tooth
• Tooth that’s moved out of alignment
• Chipped tooth that’s in pain
• Fractured or cracked tooth
• Serious tissue injury inside your mouth
• Acute teeth, gum or tissue pain
• Continuous bleeding from tissues inside your mouth
• Infection inside your mouth

What To Do If You’re Experiencing a Dental Emergency in Chicago

If you have a dental emergency in Chicago, you need to see a dentist right away. This is why we Water Tower Dental Care offers 24/7 emergency dental care to our patients on The Magnificent Mile. All you have to do is give us a call and we’ll take care of the rest.  If you call us outside of normal office hours, please listen to the recording on our voicemail and follow the instructions. Emergency calls are answered at all hours of the day, as is emergency dental care.

CEREC One-Visit Crowns

One of the most common dental emergencies at Water Tower Dental Care is a cracked, chipped or fractured tooth. Whether you crack your tooth on food or knock your tooth against something, this type of injury can cause serious pain. A broken tooth can also cause your nerves to be exposed to dangerous bacteria, which can cause dangerous infection.
We can treat this issue quickly and effectively with a CEREC One-Visit Crown, alleviating your pain and providing you with a full tooth again. Using our CEREC technology, we can perfectly fit, craft and place your crown, inlay or onlay in just one hour. It’s the perfect solution to a painful dental emergency.
Experiencing a dental emergency? Call us right now. If you’re calling during us during our off-hours, please follow the simple instructions in the recording you hear. We provide emergency dental care in Chicago 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Everyone in Chicago knows that the city’s winter weather can be hard on your commute, skin and nose. But extremely cold weather can also affect your teeth and mouth. Many Chicagoans experience uncomfortable sensations or even extreme pain in their mouth while in icy weather. Let’s take a look at why that happens and what you can do to keep your teeth and mouth feeling great all winter long!

The Effects of Chicago Winter Weather On Your Teeth & Mouth

Since teeth are naturally porous and sensitive, many people experience tooth sensitivity in the cold. Subtle irritation from time to time is normal and usually nothing to worry about. However, constant sensitivity in the same area of your mouth during the winter months may mean that the cold air is revealing a problem with your teeth.
If you have regular discomfort in the same area of your tooth, it could be caused by a variety of issues, including tiny fractures, bigger cracks, thin enamel, teeth clenching habits, or cavities. Each of these problems can lead to sensitive areas of your teeth being exposed, which in turn can cause teeth pain and discomfort all winter long.
Fillings, crowns or bridges that don’t fit your teeth anymore may also cause sensitivity.
Now let’s not let teeth take all of the spotlight here. Gum disease may be the culprit when it comes to your sensitive teeth and mouth. Gum disease can cause your gums to move away from your teeth, exposing your very sensitive roots. Two telltale signs of gum disease are sore and inflamed gums.
Surprisingly enough, a sinus infection can also be the source of your tooth pain. Swollen sinuses put pressure on the roots of your teeth, which can cause your teeth to hurt. This typically occurs in the back top teeth.
Finally, cold sores are known to wreak havoc during the winter thanks to the flu, stress, fatigue, and extreme weather conditions, according to Sitavig.

Tips To Keep Your Teeth & Mouth Feeling Better During The Winter

Now that you know what’s causing your teeth and mouth sensitivity during the winter, it’s time to get to the important part: how to make it better. If you’re experiencing regular irritation, you should visit a dentist to get to the root of your problem. It could be something serious, like gum disease. But until then, here are some tips to hold you over:

• Breathe in through your nose as much as you can. This way, the cold air won’t be able to reach sensitive areas in your mouth and cause irritation.
• Try not to clench your teeth when you are cold. Clenching can cause tooth erosion and more pain in cold weather.
• Drinking something warm, like tea, when you’re out in the cold should help ease any pain caused by low temperatures.
• Make sure you’re brushing your teeth properly twice a day and flossing once a day.
• Try using a fluoride mouthwash and toothpaste designed for sensitive teeth twice a day to create extra protection from the cold air.
• If you have allergies or think you might have a sinus infection, visit a doctor to find out how to treat it.
• Avoid stress, keep your lips moisturized and wash your hands during the winter months to minimize cold sore breakouts, according to Sitavig. You can also receive laser therapy for cold sores at our offices in Chicago! Laser therapy will help reduce the number of breakouts you have by destroying the herpes simplex virus.
• If your teeth sensitivity or mouth problems persist or feel abnormally bad, make time to visit your dentist. You may have a dental issue that needs to be addressed before it gets worse.

Want to get rid of your winter mouth and teeth issues once and for all? Visit Chicago’s top general and cosmetic dentistry! We’ll do everything we can to get to the root of your mouth discomfort and tooth sensitivity issues.

Repairing a chipped tooth is usually not as hard as one would imagine. Through several different processes, depending on the severity of the chipped tooth, a dentist can make your smile look good as new.
It all starts with the chip. While enamel is the strongest mineralized tissue of the body, it can still be broken. You could be eating a hard candy or chewing ice, you could fall or take a blow to the face; whatever it is, it can damage your tooth and require immediate attention.

What To Do If You Chip Your Tooth

Before anything else, you should know what to do right after you chip your tooth:

• First, make an appointment to see your dentist as soon as possible. Chips and fractures can become a lot worse, either by fracturing more or developing an infection, if left unattended.
• If the tooth causes you pain, use an over the counter pain reliever and rinse your mouth with salt water.
• If the tooth has a sharp edge resulting from the fracture, use gum or a paraffin wax to cover the tooth and protect your gums.
• Avoid hard foods, and if you must eat before your dentist appointment, choose soft foods: smoothies, mashed potatoes, and the like, to avoid biting down on your gums.

Treatment for a Broken Tooth

There are several types of treatment for a chipped tooth, depending on the severity of the fracture. If it’s a small crack or chip, it usually takes one visit to the dentist to solve, while more severe fractures can take several visits.
For small cracks and chips, a procedure called “bonding” is performed. Bonding does not require numbing the tooth. To bond a tooth, the dentist will add a liquid or gel to prepare the tooth for the bonding material. Next, the dentist applies an adhesive and attaches the bonding material. The material is shaped to look like a natural tooth, then dried by applying an ultraviolet light to harden the material.
For larger fractures, a crown can be placed over the teeth. This requires filing down enough of the tooth to then place a cap over it and cement it down. This protects the exposed underside of the tooth while allowing you the ability to chew and smile normally. Crowns involve taking an X-ray and impressions of your teeth for a crown to be made. On a second visit, with a permanent crown made, your dentist will use a composite cement to permanently place the crown over your tooth.
If the fracture of the tooth is so large that it exposes the root or pulp of the tooth (the center which contains nerves and blood vessels), a root canal is needed. This treatment involves removing the remaining pieces of tooth along with the dead pulp. The dentist then cleans out the empty root canal and seals it to avoid infection.
There are many options for chipped, broken, and fractured teeth, but only a medical professional can determine the right solution for you. If you are experiencing pain from a chipped tooth, contact Water Tower Dental, Chicago’s #1 rated dentist office set the path for a better, brighter smile.

Whether you took a bite into something too hard for your tooth, or took a nasty spill, the potential to crack, fracture or chip your tooth is possible. Thankfully, there are several ways to fix a chipped tooth depending on the severity of the accident.
Chipped teeth come in all shapes and sizes. While the enamel on your tooth is one of the strongest tissues of the body, it still can be broken especially if a tooth already has a good amount of decay. While it's less likely for a tooth to chip from eating, harmful snacks like ice, chewy and hard candy, and popcorn can cause a break. However, it's much more likely you'd receive a chipped or fractured tooth from falling over, playing a sport without a mouth guard, or involving yourself in a rowdy bar fight- all of which we advise you to avoid.

If you do experience a chipped tooth, we recommend you call your dentist right away and get your tooth fixed as quickly as you can. Often a chipped tooth can escalate to further damage, infection, and serious injury.
After an appointment has been set, we recommend covering your chipped tooth with wax paraffin or sugar-free gum to keep the jagged ends from cutting your gums, lips, or cheeks. If the tooth is painful, take an over the counter pain reliever to help minimize the discomfort. A cold press can also help the area from swelling.

Treating Your Chipped Tooth

Fixing a chipped tooth is often a very simple procedure. There are several ways to treat a chipped tooth depending on the severity of the break. While a simple crack or chip can be fixed during an office visit, other cases may need several doctors visit to make sure the tooth is safe from infection and further damage.

Resin Bonding

If only a small chip or break is present on the tooth, resin bonding can be used to repair it. Bonding uses a tooth-colored composite resin that fills the gap in the tooth.
This procedure is rather simple, using a flexible cement-like material; the dentist applies an adhesive material to the tooth then adds the bonding filler. The doctor then shapes the bonding to resemble the missing shape of the tooth. When just right, an ultraviolet light is used to adhere the bonding to the tooth and harden it enough to withstand the daily activities of a tooth.

Cap or Crown

For a more severe fracture, the dentist can choose to use a cap or crown to cover a tooth completely. First, the dentist will grind away a portion of the tooth. Next, they fit a tooth-shaped cap and adhere it to the remaining piece of tooth. If there is minimal tooth left, the dentist may place a post into the root of the tooth to build enough foundation for the cap to be placed on securely. Different materials can be used which usually depend on which tooth is being replaced. For less visible teeth, gold can be used, as it is a stronger material. Porcelain crowns can look much more similar to the original tooth which make them more useful for visible teeth.
In the past crowns could take several visits to complete. At Water Tower Dental Care they can now be completed in one visit with CEREC technology.

Veneers

Minimal Prep Veneers and Porcelain Veneers can be used for front chipped teeth. Similar to a cap, it is an exterior body resembling a tooth that is placed over your teeth. With veneers though, only a small amount of tooth enamel is filed down for the veneer to fit over the tooth. After filing the tooth, the dentist will make an impression of your teeth and color, then have veneers specially made. On a second visit, the veneers are cemented to your teeth.

Root Canals

In most severe cases, a tooth can fracture and expose the center of the tooth where nerves and blood vessels are. This area is known as the pulp and it is very sensitive. If exposed, the pulp can easily become infected. When this happens, the pulp must be extracted through a root canal procedure. The dentist removes the dead pulp and cleans out the emptied area. Next the canal is sealed to prevent future infection. Once sealed, a cap is placed over the remaining tooth.
Most chipped teeth happen from simple accidents. However, tooth decay can weaken a tooth to make it more likely to chip. Proper care and hygiene of your teeth is crucial. If you have any problems with a chipped tooth or would like to keep your teeth free of decay, contact Water Tower Dental to set up an appointment. We'd be happy to help.