Memorial Day weekend in Crozet usually means hiking up to Mint Springs, a cookout at Pro Re Nata, or watching the Little League tournament at Claudius Crozet Park. What it should not mean is sitting in your car at 9 p.m. on Sunday trying to figure out whether the throbbing in your jaw can wait until Tuesday. If you or someone in your family has a dental problem between now and when we reopen, this guide will help you triage what is happening and decide what to do next.
Our holiday hours and how to reach us
Crozet Family Dental is closed Saturday, May 29 through Monday, May 31 and reopens Tuesday, June 1 at 8:00 a.m. Our voicemail at (434) 823-4080 is checked at least once each day of the long weekend. If you leave a message, please include a clear callback number and one sentence about what happened (for example, “my crown came off eating corn on the cob”). That single sentence helps us decide whether to call you back the same day or pull your chart and hold a slot for Tuesday morning.
The triage below covers the most common holiday-weekend calls we get as the emergency dentist for Crozet and the western Albemarle area. Use it to figure out what you are actually dealing with.
Knocked-out adult tooth: the one true emergency
A fully knocked-out permanent tooth is the situation where minutes matter. Reimplantation works best within the first 30 minutes, drops sharply after 60 minutes outside the mouth, and is near zero after two hours. Here is what to do right now:
- Pick the tooth up by the crown (the white chewing part), never by the root. The root surface has the cells we need to keep alive.
- Rinse gently with milk or saline. Do not use tap water and do not scrub. Tap water is hypotonic and damages the surface cells we need; scrubbing strips them off.
- Reinsert the tooth into the socket if you can, even if it feels wrong. Bite gently on a clean cloth to hold it in place.
- If you cannot reinsert it, store it in a cup of milk and bring it with you.
Call (434) 823-4080 immediately and leave a message. Because the clock is the issue here, this is the one scenario where you should also drive to UVA Emergency Department or Sentara Martha Jefferson if you cannot reach us within the first 30 to 45 minutes. They can stabilize the tooth and refer you to us Tuesday.
Chipped or fractured tooth without bleeding
Most chips can wait until Tuesday if pain is controlled and the nerve is not exposed. While you wait:
- Rinse with warm salt water.
- Save any large fragments in a small container of milk in case we can bond them back.
- Cover sharp edges with a piece of sugar-free gum or with dental wax from the CVS in Old Trail.
- Take ibuprofen on a schedule, 400 mg every 6 hours with food, for no more than 2 to 3 days. Skip ibuprofen if you are pregnant, on blood thinners, or have kidney disease, or if your doctor has told you not to take it.
Leave us a voicemail and we will get you in first thing Tuesday morning.
Throbbing toothache, facial swelling, or fever
This is the category patients most often misjudge. A developing dental abscess does not wait politely until business hours. Get to an emergency room tonight, not the dental office Tuesday, if you have any of the following:
- Fever above 101F
- Swelling that is spreading toward your eye or down toward your neck
- Trouble swallowing or breathing
- Difficulty opening your mouth
UVA Emergency Department on Lee Street can start IV antibiotics and rule out airway involvement. Please also call us at (434) 823-4080 so we can coordinate follow-up antibiotics and get you onto Tuesday’s schedule for the definitive treatment (usually a root canal or extraction).
Lost filling, lost crown, lost aligner, broken denture
These feel like emergencies but almost always wait until Tuesday with a temporary fix from any local pharmacy:
- Lost filling or crown: Dentemp from CVS or Walmart will protect the tooth for a few days. Save the crown if you find it.
- Broken or loose denture: denture adhesive will get you through the weekend. Do not glue it with anything from the hardware store.
- Lost Invisalign aligner: wear your previous tray so your teeth do not shift back. Do not jump ahead to the next tray.
Leave a voicemail Saturday morning if possible. That gives us time to pull your chart, check what we have on file, and hold a same-day slot for Tuesday.
When in doubt, call us
We would always rather have you call and hear, “that can wait until Tuesday, here is what to do tonight,” than have you sit at home worrying. Crozet Family Dental is your neighborhood dental home, and that includes holiday weekends. Reach us at (434) 823-4080, leave a message, and we will get back to you. Have a safe holiday weekend, Crozet, and we will see you Tuesday.