What To Do When A Weightlifting Mishaps Knocks Teeth Loose In The Gym

Sports-related accidents are sometimes unavoidable. Often, the teeth are impacted during the mishap. Most will associated sports-related dental emergencies with contact sports such as football or boxing. Not very many people will associate bodybuilding or working out in the gym with tooth-loosening accidents. Accidentally hitting a barbell with your jaw upon hopping up after performing a bench press, however, could knock teeth loose. Properly responding to such an injury factors into whether or not your loose teeth can be saved.     

Leave the Gym Right Away

People sweat a lot in gyms and this means there may be a lot of germs and bacteria in the air. If your gums are lacerated or bleeding, remaining in the gym leaves creates a risk of infection.Staying in the gym and looking at the laceration in the mirror is ill-advised. Instead, head outside and into the safer environment of the open air. You can easily look at the damage to your teeth inside mirror of a car.

Icing the Teeth

Icing the teeth and gums is advised as this could bring down the swelling. A gym, hopefully, has a first aid kit with a cooling pack. Without going back inside of the gym, ask someone to go to the front desk and get a cooling pack. If the gym can't give you a cooling pack, look for a convenience store nearby in order to get some ice.

Applying the cooling pack or ice may reduce the pain and allow you to think more clearly about the next steps to take. Those next steps are, of course, calling a dental clinic and requesting emergency service.

Be Clear with the Dentist

Upon reaching the clinic for treatment, provide the dentist with clear details about the accident. Any additional information provided to the dentist allows him/her to provide the best possible treatment. Telling a dentist you "hit the bar" is not necessarily enough. If you jumped up from the flat bench and hit the bar above you, say so. Be sure to point out whether or not the teeth impacted the bar head on, from below in a rising motion, or off to the side. For that matter, indicate whether the bar impacted the teeth with full force or if the bar mainly hit the jawbone.  

Do not assume any details are too minor. Tell the dentist at the dental clinic anything and everything you remember about the accident.