According to Pew Research, emergency room dental visits increased by 16 percent between 2006 and 2009. In fact, 88 million dollars was spent on emergency room dental visits in the state of Florida, alone! The saddest part of this is emergency dental patients usually end up paying 10 times what it would cost for annual dental cleaning and checkups.

The above study also found that at least 80 percent of emergency room dental visits could have been prevented with routine dental care. While seeing a dentist every six months is always best, dental experts admit that daily brushing, flossing, gurgling, and limiting sugar intake can be enough to avoid a dental care emergency. Sometimes, though, dental emergencies cannot be avoided.

What are your choices if you trip and break your number 3 incisor while feeling your way to the bathroom Sunday morning at 3am? Since you are overcome by pain you decide that something must be done, and you want to avoid the emergency room at all costs. Under these circumstances your best option would be to get to the closest 24 hour supermarket and pickup a commercially available dental emergency kit.

Dental emergency kits are something that no home should be without. While the commercially available kits are not as heavy duty as the dental office emergency kits you see at your dentist, they are more than adequate for providing emergency dental treatment until you can get to an emergency dentist. It would actually be wise to keep one on hand, and store alongside your all purpose emergency kit.

Although everyone should make every effort to visit a dentist twice a year, and to brush and floss three times a day, accidents will happen; and sometimes those accidents will lead to dental emergencies. If you are ever unfortunate enough to need emergency dental care, let us hope that it is not for something that could have been prevented.