“Why Did I Wait So Long?”
The Perils & Pitfalls of Delayed Treatment
As dentists, we’re here to guide your oral health, but we can’t do that for patients who don’t seek treatment for their issues. Pain can be a reminder to be better about brushing and flossing, but in most instances, it’s also a sign that trouble is brewing.
The Cost of a Dental Rain Check
Oral health issues, like minor tooth decay, may seem perfectly manageable at first because pain is negligible or even absent. In fact, we’ve seen many a patient who didn’t come in for that very reason. The downside is that ignored problems are usually causing unseen damage. The longer a dental problem goes without being treated, the more likely it is to spread and intensify. Delayed treatment almost always guarantees a larger problem that will cost the patient in many ways:
Financial Burden — Small problems have small costs, and big problems have big costs; that’s just simple logic. A leaky faucet might require a few things to be tightened up or an affordable replacement, but leaving that faucet unrepaired just allows the water bills to stack up and puts strain on more parts that may also end up needing to be replaced. In the same vein, a minor toothache may be an early warning sign of decay, which we can take care of with a simple filling. But, left untreated, the decay will continue to eat away at the tooth, eventually requiring a crown or a root canal or even an extraction.
Pain — The longer a dental issue goes untreated, the worse it will get. What starts out as some mild tenderness can turn into severe pain. Often, this cascades more quickly than you’d expect. The increased severity of an issue doesn’t just increase the pain before treatment, either. If an issue goes undetected long enough to require root canal, surgery, or tooth extraction, patients will usually have to deal with a lengthy recovery.
Health — The reason we treat dental issues is the same reason parents treat a child who scrapes their knee on the playground: to avoid further health complications. Cleaning a cut and properly bandaging it significantly reduces the risk of infection from germs. By the same token, patients shouldn’t simply learn to chew with the teeth that don’t hurt. Untreated tooth decay or gum disease will worsen, and the infection can spread to other parts of the body, like the stomach, the lungs, or even the heart.
We’re Here to Help!
No matter how busy you are or how minor the issue may seem, in the long run, it’s always better to treat an oral health issue early than to wait for it to become a painful, costly nightmare. Fortunately, we can treat dental health problems at any stage, but we always encourage our patients to contact us at the first sign of an issue.
If you’re experiencing any oral pain, call Lincoln Crossings Dental Care located in North Huntingdon, PA to schedule an examination. We’ll do everything in our power to restore your oral health as quickly as possible!
