Avoid a Holiday Dental Emergency

Book a check-up before the festive season

Christmas is just around the corner. While it may be too early to start putting up decorations or playing Christmas carols, it is certainly not too early to start planning. Your planning may include your undoubtedly delicious festive menu, possible accommodation for visiting friends and relatives, or maybe just ensuring there will be enough presents under the tree for the kids. But how many of you are thinking about scheduling family dental check-ups before the holiday season? We strongly urge you to book it in, because no one wants the festivities interrupted by a dental emergency!

Think about it: It’s a typically warm Queensland Christmas day. You’re sitting around the pool, feet up on a chair, your favourite cool beverage offsetting the summer heat. Christmas carols are playing softly in the background while the kids run around playing with their new toys. You’re feeling relaxed after feasting on Christmas seafood and cold salads. You decide you do have room for one last seasonal cherry: a perfect accompaniment to your lychee mojito perhaps. You bite down, and then BAM! Excruciating pain, thanks to a now broken tooth. It could have been avoided if you had that niggling toothache looked at earlier.

You may think that this type of dental emergency doesn’t count because it is unavoidable. But while one-off instances of trauma can cause cracked teeth, they can also be caused by weak enamel due to tooth decay or deteriorated seals between tooth and filling. The latter two are conditions which can be identified in a regular check-up. At DentalCareXtra, we can fortify your tooth to avoid a dental emergency.

Your dental check-up can also find instances of infection, which if left untreated can quickly escalate into an abscess. And if you have ever had an abscess in the mouth, you would know that they can be excruciating. Thus you will not want to wait until the holiday season is over to see a dentist. So again, a dental check-up can help you avoid pain and discomfort in the case of possible infection.

We realise that you may be putting off a dental check-up toward the end of the year due to all of the other costs associated with Christmas. But if you have private health insurance, check what your insurer’s policy is regarding end-of-year rollovers. Many private health funds expire at the end of December (that is, they start a new ‘claiming year’ at the beginning of January). Often this expiration means that policyholders lose entitlement to any unclaimed benefits. So, make sure you use any unclaimed dental before it expires. Or check with your health fund provider as to whether you are entitled to ‘rollover’ your unclaimed benefits.

DentalCareXtra will be closed over the holiday season so that we can work off our Christmas lunches. Both our Moranbah and Marian clinics will be closed from 23 December 2017 and will reopen on 3 January 2018. So book your check-up early and get peace of mind this festive season. And at the very least, remember, we clean your teeth with every dental check-up. So your pearly whites will be glistening for all of those fabulous festive photos if you factor a check-up into your holiday planning!

To book your pre-holidays dental check-up before our shutdown, call us or book online.

#dentalemergencies #dentalcheckups #festiveseason #christmaslunch #healthfundrollover