Emergency Care

At Nowlin Orthodontics, we also want you to text us if you feel you are experiencing an orthodontic emergency such as severe discomfort. While there will always be some level of irritation or discomfort when your braces are adjusted, this should only last for a couple of days. If it continues to do so, you may have an underlying infection or another issue that must be identified.

We would rather have you text our office and schedule an exam than to be worried or suffer unnecessarily. We are available to help you in the evening or weekend as necessary.

In order to determine if you are facing an orthodontic emergency that requires an immediate appointment, we will ask questions to assess the situation and provide recommendations for what you can do at home prior to coming in. At times, our Oklahoma patients prefer to follow this advice and come in during the week so as not to interfere with their weekend activities. Regardless of what you need we can help, so text Nowlin Orthodontics for all of your orthodontic emergencies.

Text us for all your orthodontics emergencies!

Similar to how a wire can become loose, a bracket can as well, creating an orthodontic emergency. Brackets are durable and will remain in place unless a hard object forces them to move. This can happen when eating hard foods or chewing on something like a pencil. For this reason, we recommend being cautious in what you eat and if this happens to you, contact us for immediate care.

When wearing traditional metal braces or ceramic ones, there is always the possibility that rubber band may break, and your wire may come loose, creating an orthodontic emergency. A wire is designed to be threaded in between the brackets on your teeth and held in place with these rubber bands. It is the wire, that when adjusted, moves your teeth into the right position by applying pressure to specific teeth at the right time. If it becomes loose, this is a problem on more than one level.

1. First, the wire can cause unnecessary irritation of your cheek and gum tissue.
2. Secondly, it can inadvertently put pressure on the wrong tooth and push it in the wrong direction.

With that in mind, if you live in Tulsa and your wire becomes loose – call us to have your orthodontic emergency corrected. We will secure the wire back in place so that your teeth can continue moving as prescribed.

While, one always hopes that an orthodontic treatment will pass without tooth damage, this is not always the case. People still get into car accidents, are hurt on the job, or have a tooth injured while playing sports. As hard as you try, this type of damage cannot always be avoided and if it occurs, you may need to visit our Tulsa orthodontist office to have the wire removed, along with the bracket on the damaged tooth, so that it can be restored. If, for example, your tooth becomes cracked, the bracket will need to be removed so that the tooth can be restored using a bonding procedure, a dental veneer or a dental crown. Once the restoration is complete, you can resume your orthodontics treatment. At Nowlin Orthodontics, we will work with you to complete our portion of the process as quickly as possible.

It naturally takes time to get used to wearing braces so if your cheeks are irritated immediately afterward – hang in there. In our Tulsa orthodontist office, we advise patients to expect this irritation for a few days and try to eat cool, soft foods since that will help to prevent the irritation from increasing. However, we can give you some wax or silicone that can be placed on top of your brackets to prevent them from touching your teeth. This is extremely easy to apply as you simply place it on your finger and mold it around the brackets. This can be used for a couple of weeks and is typically all that is necessary for reducing irritation. If you live in the 74136 area, feel free to call our office and pick some up.