Dental emergencies can sneak up on you and put you in pain when you least expect it. In this episode, Dr. Michelle talks emergency dentistry, how to recognize and respond to dental emergencies when they happen to you, and how Jax Beaches Family Dentistry can help. Learn more at:
https://jacksonvillebeachdentist.com/services/emergency-dentistry/
Dental emergencies can sneak up on you and put you in pain when you least expect it. In this episode, Dr. Michelle talks emergency dentistry, how to recognize and respond to dental emergencies when they happen to you, and how Jax Beaches Family Dentistry can help. Learn more at:
https://jacksonvillebeachdentist.com/services/emergency-dentistry/
Kevin (00:08):
It's time for Dr. Michelle's Smile Cast where we talk about your smile and other interesting dental topics.
Dr. Michelle (00:17):
Smile.
Kevin (00:19):
And now here's Dr. Michelle DeFelice, Hucke of Jax Beaches Family Dentistry.
Kevin (00:25):
Good morning, Dr. Michelle on this TGIF. Friday.
Dr. Michelle (00:30):
Good morning.
Kevin (00:31):
How you feeling?
Dr. Michelle (00:32):
I feel great.
Kevin (00:32):
Good, good. Hey, we're going to spend some time with Dr. Michelle this morning. We're going to play some music as well, and we're going to also make sure this gets up on Facebook as well. We'll tell you how you can watch all this in case you're hopping in and out of your vehicle and you don't catch all of it. Today we're going to talk about dental emergencies about that. Yeah. So sometimes we think a dental emergency is when your 6-year-old has a baseball, hit their head, knock out a tooth, right?
Dr. Michelle (00:59):
That is an emergency.
Kevin (01:01):
Years ago, many years ago, Dr. Michelle explained to me on the radio that the best thing you can do is take that tooth, put it in milk, and go to the dentist immediately. I was amazed by that. Obviously, it's still stuck in my head, even though I'm not anywhere near having a baseball stuck in my head. But
Dr. Michelle (01:16):
The best thing to do, which no one probably wants to hear, is to attempt to put the tooth back where it came from. Oh,
Kevin (01:23):
You did say that. That was so disgusting that I actually in a car accident situation blotted it out of my head. But I would think because a mom, I guess moms would have no problem with that.
Dr. Michelle (01:36):
Well, it's sort of like that whole, how everybody talks about their loved one ends up underneath the car and somehow with superhuman strength.
Kevin (01:45):
Yeah, the adrenaline
Dr. Michelle (01:45):
Lift up the car, whatever. Yeah. But yeah, the most, number one on the list of I guess four or five different options is to put the tooth back where it is, and if there's dirt or debris on the root, you would rinse it with milk and do all you can to not touch the root, because the root has the cells and things on it that need to reattach. Yeah.
Kevin (02:13):
So milk.
Dr. Michelle (02:14):
Well, not St. Augustine City water.
Kevin (02:17):
Oh, you don't want to do that.
Dr. Michelle (02:19):
Anything but city water because city water or any kind of water that comes out of the tap has chlorine, et cetera, et cetera in it.
Kevin (02:26):
Oh, okay. And
Dr. Michelle (02:27):
No, we don't want any chemicals, so that's why milk, right, because it's neutral.
Kevin (02:31):
Oh, interesting. Or
Dr. Michelle (02:32):
Distilled water. I still think though milk is supposed to be the best because it doesn't have anything bad in it.
Kevin (02:39):
We always talk about it in the context of this happening to a kid, but obviously it could happen to an adult.
Dr. Michelle (02:45):
Sure. If you're doing a whatever, you're playing some sort of sports
Kevin (02:48):
Or fall off a ladder in the garage. Oh yeah. We're going to go through a list of particularly gruesome emergencies that Dr. Michelle has seen. I'm just kidding.
Dr. Michelle (02:56):
Really not.
Kevin (02:58):
We're going to name names. Some particularly silly. No, we're going to spend some time talking about emergency appointments, but all seriousness, stopping the kidding for just a moment. So dental emergencies can be what you may perceive, and we were talking off the air about this a little bit. Unlike a, you have a hand saw problem and your arm is half cut off, these dental emergencies may not seem as obvious as that.
Dr. Michelle (03:22):
Yes. The thing about dental issues in general, people think of, okay, well I have a dental emergency if I'm having pain or I have a dental emergency if I'm having swelling or I have a dental emergency if I broke off a tooth, those are very obvious dental emergencies or a crown came off or there's a list of four or five super obvious things that are clearly a dental emergency. But over my career, I'll say the one thing that has always caused me to first of all be very passionate about dental emergencies in general, which sounds quite silly, however, especially since I came to this area, I am really focused on being sure that everyone knows that our office is available every day for same day emergencies. And so what you and I were talking about off the air is like, what is an emergency? Well, the thing that is interesting about emergencies is that oftentimes something that is very serious that's going on in a patient's mouth has almost no symptoms. So for those of you listening, if you are having any awareness in your mouth, your mouth is supposed to feel the same. Your entire whole mouth, all your teeth, your gums, everything is supposed to feel normal and nothing is supposed to stand out every single day of your life. So if you even have a minor awareness in part of your mouth or with an individual tooth, it's often really serious even though it doesn't feel serious.
Kevin (05:00):
And that could be like we're talking off the air, an abscess, which is an infection. It could be inside your jaw bone or something like that
Dr. Michelle (05:09):
At the end of the root. That's where an abscess generally develops if the nerve has died and 90% of the time there are no symptoms. The main way that we see them is when we're doing a comprehensive exam and we're taking a full series of X-rays, which isn't just the top parts of the
Kevin (05:28):
Teeth. Yeah. Hey, if you're just hopping in your vehicle or just tuning us in, that's the voice of Dr. Michelle DeFelice Hucke, and of course she is with Jax Beaches Family Dentistry. You can learn more by going to Jacksonvillebeachdentist.com, Jacksonvillebeachdentist.com. Go to Jax Beaches Family Dentistry on Facebook and on Instagram, and a little bit later we'll be posting a video of our time with Dr. Michelle where we are talking about dental emergencies, potential dental emergencies. As we get older and we have crowns and potentially implants and things like that going on, are we inclined to have more dental emergencies?
Dr. Michelle (06:02):
Well, yeah. The more dentistry you have in your mouth, the more likely that, because every time you have a filling done, which for the most part is an innocuous procedure, you have a filling done. I don't know if you want to talk about it, but you had some fillings done
Kevin (06:20):
Recently. Dr. Michelle did five fillings in one day in my mouth just a couple of days ago. She did a tremendous job. Oh, well thank you. My bite is fine, and when I open my mouth now, I used to be like a pawn shop with all the silver in there. Now it all matches my teeth. People think I have no cavities. That's
Dr. Michelle (06:36):
Right. So we did some fillings and generally you get fillings done, everything feels great. However, every time you drill on a tooth, you're traumatizing the tooth. So there's always the likelihood that something could happen with the nerve. As you get closer and closer to the nerve, you have a feeling done when you're a teenager, then you have it, it breaks down, you get decay under it, you get drilled on again, every time you do that, you're getting closer and closer to the nerve. So there's always the likelihood when you have dentistry or the possibility, not likelihood, that the nerve can be damaged to the point where a year or two from now all of a sudden you have a toothache. Yeah.
Kevin (07:19):
Dr. Michelle is with us once again from Jax Beaches Family Dentistry. I guess it's that old rule of thumb, right? Your body is talking to you, so if your body sends you a subtle message or you think it's subtle from your mouth that something's not right, there is some sort of numbing pain or throbbing pain, or maybe it's not even that pronounced,
Dr. Michelle (07:37):
It's generally not pain.
Kevin (07:38):
Yeah. What's it going to be?
Dr. Michelle (07:40):
I call it an awareness. All of a sudden you're like, huh. The upper right area of my mouth just doesn't feel like the rest of my mouth.
Kevin (07:49):
And that's maybe all you're going to get.
Dr. Michelle (07:51):
That can be all you get.
Kevin (07:52):
Yeah. Well, once again, don't hesitate when that happens when you sense something is wrong. We have a great veterinarian who comes in here. Dr. Grace shook with Driftwood Veterinary Hospital, and she describes it as if you see your pet quote ain't doing right and get 'em to see me, well of course
Dr. Michelle (08:10):
They can't talk. Right.
Kevin (08:12):
And that could mean anything from different pattern or just, it doesn't have to be that the dog is in the corner, the cat's in the corner yelping and crying. Yeah.
Dr. Michelle (08:20):
You don't want to wait until it's, that's a great example with your dog. You wouldn't wait until Fido is just not even moving.
Kevin (08:28):
That's our next marketing initiative. Do you suffer from a DR Ain't doing right in your mouth? That's awesome. Isn't that right? Yeah, it has a great acronym. Learn more about what we're talking about and about all the different procedures and all the things that they can do for you at Jack Family Dentistry. Obviously Dr. Michelle is my dentist. It has been for years. She rolls her eyes at that. She's like, I'm one of her worst patients, right? You are not. I'm pretty good, right? Yeah, you are. I manned for the five new fillings, right?
Dr. Michelle (08:57):
Yes, absolutely.
Kevin (08:59):
Boy, what a hesitation on that. It took a while. It took a while, but I finally got it done. Learn more at jacksonvillebeachdentist.com and we'll be back
(10:10):
Good driving song if you're hitting the road, going out of town if you're traveling. That's one of the things we want to talk about when it comes under the topic of emergency dentistry.
Dr. Michelle (10:19):
That's what you do with your segue?
Kevin (10:21):
Yeah. Yeah. I've been doing this for a few months now. Dr. Michelle is here with us from Jax Beaches Family Dentistry, learn more at jacksonvillebeachdentist.com. She's a big part of our community here in Northeast Florida. And indeed, as we talked off the air, a lot of tourists, a lot of people coming and going, but just because you're here visiting doesn't mean you may not have a dental emergency.
Dr. Michelle (10:40):
Yes. Well, yeah, because one of the things I always say when I'm talking about dental emergencies is if you're over the age of 60, it's unfortunately generally not a matter of if you're going to have a dental emergency, it's when. So it is important when you're traveling, I mean, what I tell my patients is if you're going to travel, it's good to check in and especially if you're due for a cleaning before you're headed out of town for a couple of months, it's good to have your, I call it my travel dental checkup. People will take their automobiles in if they're going to go on a long trip and do a travel check of their car, but it is good to do a travel check of your mouth and please give us more than two days after that. People will come in on a Thursday and go, okay, well I just wanted to get things checked up. You're going to be gone for a couple months. And I'm like, okay, when are you leaving? Saturday? Okay, great. When are we doing the root canal? You need done?
Kevin (11:39):
I want an hour.
Dr. Michelle (11:42):
You were expecting us to just work all that in today, I guess.
Kevin (11:46):
So kind of walk me through what happened. So say grandma's visiting here from Columbus, Ohio, and grandma suddenly the cap on her tooth breaks or she has a crown, she has a problem with a crown or a filling falls out and now she can't drink coffee. What do we do?
Dr. Michelle (12:04):
We see grandma and we take some X-rays just of that area generally and diagnose what needs to be done. And the other great thing, which I didn't really think about until you just said that about our office is most of the treatment we do can be all done same day, all in one visit. So that's really helpful for grandma because we can get her tooth not just taking care of temporarily and kind of patched together somehow. We can go ahead. Let's say she needs a new crown. That's the simplest solution, and we have CAD cam technology so that we can do that crown start to finish, put the permanent crown on within a couple hours.
Kevin (12:48):
That gives you some peace of mind, gives all of us some peace of mind because I think we think, oh man, what's the worst case scenario? You're visiting family or you're on vacation and you have a dental problem because you feel like, well, that's just going to trash the whole vacation or the whole visit with
Dr. Michelle (13:03):
Family. Well, and that's really good. I had an interesting emergency that I hadn't had in a while, I think really since I was up north and I used to see a lot of college kids who would smash their faces for a variety of reasons. Alcohol usually involved. So this couple was bicycling right near my office and she was looking down to text while she was riding a bicycle and she fell and smashed up her face and her front teeth and she fell right in front of one of our patients' homes and he watched the crash
(13:47):
And he walks over and he goes, and he had them walk to our office. They were literally right behind our office. And so they were day two of a one month vacation and they were like, should we go home and crash our vacation? And she had some pretty, one of the teeth she's going to end up using losing. But what I did was I put everything back together. I did same day temporary crowns on a couple of the teeth, wired her up and they stayed for the whole month and had a great vacation. So yeah, very good. Yeah, I completely forgot about that until we were just talking about it. But yeah, that was an example of people then being able to, they had rented a V-R-B-O house and so they were able to stay instead of having to rush home,
Kevin (14:35):
Sort of the Humpty Dumpty experience. Right. Fell off the bike, fell off the wall, then hard, you put her all back together again. Dr. Michelle wired her up. She's ready to go. Well, once again, dental emergencies, they don't have to be as pronounced as falling off a bike and smashing up your mouth. We learned in the first segment in case you're just hopping into your vehicle, getting out of Publix or whatever. One thing that I've learned, and Dr. Michelle made a really good point of these dental emergencies can be just you sensing within your mouth that just something is not right.
Dr. Michelle (15:06):
Exactly. The need for a root canal is often a really, really mild symptoms. And again, if you're just at the beginning of a two week vacation, we are able to go, okay, yeah, you got an abscess and you need a root canal. We can do the root canal post and crown all in one visit and you can just kind of carry on with your vacation, which is great.
Kevin (15:25):
Very good. Well, once again, if you have any questions, there's all kinds of good information at the website, Jacksonvillebeachdentist.com, you can always search for Jax Beaches Family Dentistry on Facebook and Instagram. You'll see all kinds of good information there. Give you a good sense, give you a comfort level with the practice. And of course, Dr. Michelle's been doing this now for a few months now.
Dr. Michelle (15:43):
We're not going to talk about that then. People are going to start to, people are going to start to do math.
Kevin (15:49):
We don't like that. No. Yeah. Most of our listeners though, once you get beyond fingers and toes, we're really not that good at math. So at least I'm not. Dr. Michelle DeFelice Hucke, once again, we appreciate you as always, your big part of our family here at WSOS, and we hope you have a good weekend. Thank
Dr. Michelle (16:05):
You.