Our Yokine clinic takes emergency bookings by phone until 9pm, seven days a week, and if you can reach us within thirty minutes our dentists will wait for you. What you do before you arrive genuinely affects the outcome, particularly with trauma.
A knocked-out adult tooth
This is the one where minutes matter. 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, put it straight back into the socket and bite gently on a clean cloth. If you cannot, keep it in milk or in your own saliva and come in immediately.
A broken or chipped tooth
Rinse with warm water, keep any fragments, and cover a sharp edge with sugar-free gum or dental wax if it is cutting your tongue. Avoid chewing on that side.
Swelling
Facial or gum swelling usually means an abscess, and it does not resolve on its own. Take the pain relief you would normally take and get in as soon as you can.
Swelling that is spreading toward your eye, or affecting your breathing or swallowing, is a hospital emergency rather than a dental one. Call 000.
A lost filling or crown
Keep the crown if you have it, as it can often be recemented. Avoid that side and do not use household glue under any circumstances. Temporary dental cement from a pharmacy is fine for a night.
Toothache that will not settle
Pain that wakes you at night, or that lingers after something hot or cold, usually means the nerve is involved. That is a root canal or an extraction decision, and it will not improve with waiting.