Call now: (480) 732-7874
Before you read another word, save the number. Dental pain has a way of getting worse the longer you wait, and the swelling from an infection can move quickly. One phone call gets you a real person who can triage what you are dealing with and, in most cases, get you into the chair the same day.
We see emergencies for patients across the City of Chandler and the surrounding Maricopa County area, including Mesa, Tempe, Gilbert, and the east Phoenix metro. Our office is at 2160 W Chandler Blvd #20, Chandler AZ 85224.
What counts as a dental emergency (and what can wait until morning)
Not every dental problem needs a same-day visit, but some genuinely do. The simple test: if you have uncontrolled bleeding, swelling that is spreading, a knocked-out adult tooth, or pain that over-the-counter medicine is not touching, treat it as an emergency and call. It lines up with what dental experts consider a true emergency. Here is how the common situations break down.
Severe toothache or tooth pain
A toothache that keeps you up at night, throbs on its own, or makes it hard to eat is your body flagging a problem under the surface, often decay reaching the nerve or an infection starting. Pain that radiates to your jaw or ear, or comes with a fever, moves you to the front of the line.
Right now, before you reach us: rinse with warm salt water, about half a teaspoon of salt in a cup of warm water, and floss gently around the tooth in case a popcorn hull or a seed is wedged against the gum. An over-the-counter pain reliever taken as directed on the label helps, and a cold compress against the outside of your cheek for fifteen minutes calms the throb. Do not lay an aspirin tablet directly on the gum or the tooth. It does not work that way and it can burn the tissue.
Knocked-out tooth (what to do in the first 30 minutes)
A knocked-out adult tooth is one of the few true dental emergencies where minutes matter. Pick the tooth up by the crown, the white part, not the root. If it is dirty, rinse it gently with water or milk for a few seconds without scrubbing it and without wiping off the soft tissue still attached. If you can, slip it back into the socket the right way around and bite down on gauze to hold it. If you cannot reinsert it, the single most important thing is to keep it from drying out: drop it in a cup of cold milk, a tooth-preservation kit, or tuck it between your cheek and gum, and get to us right away. The sooner we see you, generally within thirty to sixty minutes, the better the odds of saving it, which is exactly how the American Association of Endodontists lays out the first-aid steps. Water is a last resort for storage, not milk’s equal, because plain water damages the root cells quickly. Baby teeth are different, do not try to reinsert a child’s baby tooth, just call.
Cracked, chipped, or broken tooth
A chip with no pain can usually wait a day or two. A tooth that is cracked deep, broken to the gumline, or sharp enough to cut your tongue should be seen the same day. Save any pieces you can find in a little milk or water, rinse your mouth with warm water, and use a cold compress on the outside of your face to keep swelling down. If a jagged edge is cutting your tongue or cheek, a piece of orthodontic wax or even a wad of sugarless gum pressed over the sharp spot protects the soft tissue until we see you. Stick to soft foods and chew on the other side. We will figure out whether it needs a filling, a crown, or something more.
Dental abscess or infection (when it is urgent)
An abscess is a pocket of infection, and it is the situation we least want you to sit on. Signs include a persistent bad taste, a pimple-like bump on the gum, facial or jaw swelling, swollen glands, and a fever. Infection in the mouth can spread to spaces in the head and neck, so swelling that is growing, or any trouble breathing or swallowing, is a same-day or go-to-the-ER situation. Call us and describe the swelling exactly. Warm salt-water rinses can ease the pressure while you wait, but a salt rinse and a few ibuprofen do not cure an infection. Do not try to pop or squeeze the bump yourself, that pushes bacteria deeper. If you are lying down and the throbbing is worse, prop your head up on an extra pillow, since keeping the area above your heart eases the pressure. The tooth still needs treatment, the way endodontists treat a dental abscess, usually a root canal or an extraction, and often an antibiotic to get the swelling under control first.
Lost crown or filling
A crown or filling that pops out is uncomfortable and leaves the tooth exposed, but it is rarely an after-midnight crisis. Keep the crown if you still have it, rinse it off, and tuck it somewhere safe so you do not lose it. Avoid chewing on that side and keep the area clean. The exposed tooth is often sensitive to cold and air, and a tiny dab of clove oil on the spot can take the edge off. A dab of over-the-counter temporary dental cement, or in a pinch a little denture adhesive, can hold a loose crown back in place until we see you. Do not use household glue. Call and we will get you in to re-cement or replace it before the exposed tooth chips or decays.
Broken braces or orthodontic emergency
A poking wire, a loose bracket, or a broken aligner is uncomfortable but usually not dangerous. Press a pea-sized piece of orthodontic wax over the poking end to buy yourself relief, and if a wire has shifted you can gently nudge it back with the eraser end of a pencil. Do not cut the wire yourself, since a clipped piece can fall back and be swallowed or inhaled. If a bracket comes loose but is still on the wire, leave it and cover it with wax. A wire that is cutting into the cheek, or trauma to the mouth while you are in braces, deserves a same-day call. Because orthodontics is half of what we do, we can handle most braces and aligner emergencies in-house rather than sending you across town. For athletes in braces, custom mouthguards can prevent many orthodontic emergencies before they happen.
If the pain hits after we have closed and you are waiting on a morning appointment, most dental pain can be managed safely overnight. Start with a warm salt-water rinse, then a cold compress against your cheek for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time to bring down swelling and dull the ache. Keep your head propped up when you lie down, because lying flat sends more blood to the area and makes throbbing worse.
For the pain itself, an over-the-counter pain reliever taken exactly as directed on the label is the workhorse. Ibuprofen also helps with the inflammation behind a lot of dental pain, and if your doctor or pharmacist has told you it is fine for you, alternating ibuprofen and acetaminophen on schedule can cover more of the night than either alone. Never exceed the dose on the bottle, and never press an aspirin against the gum. A small dab of clove oil on a sore tooth is an old standby that genuinely takes the edge off.
What to skip until you are seen: very hot, very cold, sugary, or acidic foods and drinks, chewing on the bad side, alcohol, and tobacco, all of which can sharpen the pain or feed an infection. This is comfort care, not a cure. The tooth still needs to be looked at.
Here is the line that should override all of the above. If swelling is spreading across your face, climbing toward your eye, or moving down into your neck, if you are running a fever with the swelling, or if it is getting hard to swallow or breathe, that is no longer a wait-until-morning situation. Go to the nearest emergency room or call 911. Infection that reaches the airway is a medical emergency, not a dental one.
What to expect at your same-day emergency visit in Chandler
When you walk in, the first goal is simple: stop the pain and stabilize the tooth. We get you comfortable, take a focused X-ray of the problem area, and the dentist examines exactly what is going on before recommending anything. You leave knowing what happened, what we did today, and what (if anything) comes next.
In the first ten minutes, the priority is diagnosis and relief, not a sales pitch for a full treatment plan. The way we approach it, get the patient out of pain today, then talk through the longer fix once they are comfortable and thinking clearly. We would rather schedule the bigger work for a day you are not white-knuckling the armrest. For patients with dental anxiety, we offer sedation options to keep you comfortable during emergency treatment.
Relief usually means one of a few things: numbing the area and treating the source, draining an infection, smoothing or temporarily repairing a broken tooth, or re-cementing a crown. If you need an antibiotic before a tooth can be fully treated, we handle that the same visit. Before you leave, you get clear aftercare instructions, a real cost on anything that still needs doing, and a follow-up time on the calendar so the emergency does not turn into a recurring problem.
One practical tip for the phone call. Have your symptoms ready: when it started, whether there is swelling, how bad the pain is on a scale of one to ten, and whether anything (heat, cold, pressure) makes it worse. That thirty-second summary helps us triage you correctly and decide how fast you need to be seen.
What an emergency dental visit costs in Chandler
Most patients want a number before they walk in, and most dental websites refuse to give one. We will. In the Chandler area, a focused emergency exam with a diagnostic X-ray commonly runs about $150 to $350 combined, before any treatment. The treatment itself depends entirely on what the exam finds.
From there, here is the honest range. A simple problem like re-cementing a crown or a small filling sits at the lower end. A simple extraction often falls around $200 to $450. More involved care, such as a surgical extraction, draining an abscess, or starting a root canal, can run from about $500 to $1,800 or more depending on the tooth and the complexity. We quote your specific number before we do anything, not after.
A note on the difference between today’s visit and the full repair. Sometimes the emergency appointment stabilizes the tooth and the permanent fix (a crown, a finished root canal, a dental implant) happens at a later visit, which spreads the cost out. We will tell you which parts are urgent today and which can wait a week or two, so you are not paying for everything at once when you do not have to.
Cost should not be the reason you sit at home in pain. If insurance is in play we will check your benefits, and if it is not, we will talk through payment options including CareCredit financing and our in-house savings plan before treatment, not after. Ask us at the front desk and we will lay it out plainly.
Emergency dentist or emergency room: which one
For most dental problems, a dentist is the right call, not the ER. Hospital emergency rooms can manage pain and prescribe antibiotics, but they are not staffed to fix the tooth, so you often pay for the visit and still need a dentist afterward. A dentist treats the actual cause the same day.
Go to the emergency room or call 911 when the situation is bigger than a tooth. The clear ER signs: facial swelling that is spreading toward your eye or down into your neck, any trouble breathing or swallowing, a fever that climbs alongside mouth swelling, bleeding that will not stop after fifteen minutes of steady pressure, a jaw you think may be broken, or any face and mouth injury from a car accident, a fall, or a hard hit where you might have other injuries too. Those are airway, bone, and trauma problems, and a hospital is built for them.
Call us first for the dental problems, which is most of them: a toothache, a knocked-out or pushed-in tooth, a cracked or broken tooth, a lost crown or filling, a broken-off piece of a denture, or an abscess that is sore and swollen but not spreading across your face or affecting your breathing. We can almost always see you faster than an ER waiting room and we fix the cause instead of just quieting it for a night. If you do end up at the hospital and they stabilize you, bring the discharge notes and any X-rays when you come in, and we will pick up the dental side from there.
Meet your Chandler emergency dentists
Emergencies are easier when a real, named dentist is on the other end of the line, not a faceless front desk. Our Chandler practice is home to three experienced dentists who handle urgent care: Dr. Scott Lee, Dr. Kelli Hahn, and Dr. Richard Monahan. You will be treated by a licensed dentist, not handed off down a chain.
Dr. Scott Lee, DDS, graduated cum laude from The Ohio State University College of Dentistry and served in the United States Marine Corps, earning a Purple Heart. His precision and composure under pressure make him exceptionally suited for emergency care. Dr. Lee is an active member of the American Dental Association and the Arizona Dental Association.
Dr. Kelli Hahn, DMD, earned her degree from Midwestern University and has completed over 1,000 hours of advanced training at the Kois Center in Seattle. Her restorative expertise is critical when an emergency involves saving or reconstructing a damaged tooth.
Dr. Richard Monahan, DDS, brings decades of clinical experience and a calm, reassuring chairside manner that puts anxious emergency patients at ease.
Between them they have seen most of what a Chandler patient can walk in with, from a Friday-night broken molar to a child who took a basketball to the mouth.
Frequently asked questions about emergency dentistry in Chandler
What qualifies as a dental emergency?
Anything involving uncontrolled bleeding, spreading swelling, a knocked-out adult tooth, a broken tooth with pain, an abscess, or a toothache that over-the-counter medicine is not controlling. When in doubt, call (480) 732-7874 and describe it. We would rather you ask than wait at home while a tooth infection gets worse.
How fast can I be seen?
We hold time in the daily schedule for emergencies and treat same-day appointments as the norm, not the exception, for urgent cases. Call early in the day when you can, but call whenever the problem starts. The sooner we know you are coming, the sooner we can get you comfortable.
Do you see emergency patients after hours?
During office hours, call (480) 732-7874 and we will get you in as fast as we can. Outside office hours, call the same number for instructions on reaching us. For anything affecting your breathing, swallowing, or a possible broken jaw, do not wait on a callback, go to the nearest emergency room or call 911.
What if I cannot afford it right now?
Tell us. Cost should not keep you in pain. We will check your insurance benefits if you have coverage, and talk through payment options including CareCredit financing and our in-house savings plan before we begin any treatment. The emergency exam and X-ray come first so you know exactly what you are dealing with and what it will cost before you commit.
Can you save my knocked-out tooth?
Often, yes, if you act fast. Handle the tooth by the crown, not the root, keep it moist in milk or in your cheek, and get to us inside the first hour if you can. Reimplantation works best the sooner the tooth is back in its socket. Do not reinsert a child’s baby tooth, just call us.
Is a lost crown or filling an emergency?
Usually not a middle-of-the-night one, but do not ignore it. The exposed tooth is vulnerable and sensitive. Keep the crown if you have it, avoid chewing on that side, and call us to get it re-cemented or replaced before the tooth that was under it starts to break down or decay.
ER or emergency dentist?
For a tooth problem, a dentist treats the cause and usually sees you faster. Use the emergency room for swelling that affects breathing or swallowing, a suspected broken jaw, uncontrolled bleeding, or facial trauma. For everything tooth-related, call us first at (480) 732-7874.
Serving Chandler Neighborhoods and Surrounding Communities
Our office at 2160 W Chandler Blvd Ste 20 in Chandler, AZ 85224 provides same-day emergency dental care for families from Grand Reserve, La Glorieta, Pueblo Santa Fe, Mission Tierra, Rialto Hills, Pecos Ranch, Sun Groves, Ironwood Vistas, Silverton Ranch, Cooper Commons, and surrounding East Valley communities including Mesa, Tempe, Gilbert, and Phoenix.
Related care at our Chandler office: root canal treatment for tooth infections, dental crowns for broken teeth and lost crowns, dental bridges, pediatric dentistry for children’s dental emergencies, sedation dentistry for anxious patients, and our Chandler dental home page.
