Emergency Dentist in Macclesfield

Toothache, a broken tooth or a swelling that won’t settle? Bollington Dental Practice keeps time in the diary for urgent problems, ten minutes from Macclesfield town centre with free parking next to the practice. Call us on 01625 574609 as early in the day as you can and we’ll do our best to see you the same day.

Not sure how urgent yours is? Two minutes with our urgency checker gives you an honest answer: call today, book this week, or self-care first, with practical advice while you wait.

If you are in pain right now

• Call: 01625 574609, as early in the day as you can
• Same day: for genuine emergencies we aim to see you the same day
• Not registered with us? You do not need to be one of our patients to be seen
• Cost: our standard published prices, with no call-out fee and no emergency premium
• Opening hours: Monday to Thursday 8:30am to 5:15pm, Friday 8:30am to 2pm
• When we are closed: call NHS 111 for the nearest out-of-hours emergency dental service
• Go straight to A&E for a swelling spreading towards your eye or neck, difficulty swallowing or breathing, or serious facial trauma
• Where we are: 19 Bollington Road, Bollington, Macclesfield SK10 5EJ, about ten minutes from the town centre, with free parking beside the practice

Dental emergencies we treat

• Severe toothache that painkillers aren’t touching
• Facial swelling or a suspected abscess
• Broken, chipped or cracked teeth
• Knocked-out or loosened teeth after an accident
• Lost crowns, fillings or broken dentures
• Bleeding that won’t stop after an extraction

What happens when you call

Our reception team will ask a few questions to understand how urgent the problem is, then find you the earliest suitable appointment. For genuine emergencies we aim to see you the same day. We’ll always explain what treatment is needed and what it will cost before we start, and you can see our standard prices on our fees page.

What an emergency visit costs

No call-out fees and no emergency premium: you pay our standard published prices, agreed with you before any treatment starts. As a guide:

• Examination: £60, or £89 for a full new patient examination including any X-rays needed
• Fillings: from £95 (amalgam) or £125 (tooth-coloured composite)
• Tooth extraction: from £126
• Root canal treatment: from £305
• Recementing or replacing a lost crown: priced on assessment, crowns from £600 if a new one is needed

Whatever the problem, you will know the exact cost before you are in the chair, never after.

Out of hours

If you need urgent dental care when we’re closed, call NHS 111 for advice and details of the nearest out-of-hours emergency dental service. For a swelling that is spreading to your eye or neck, difficulty swallowing or breathing, or serious facial trauma, go straight to A&E.

The problems we see most, and what to do before you reach us

Most dental emergencies fall into a handful of patterns, and what you do in the first hour makes a genuine difference to how they turn out. Here are the ones our phones ring about most, with the single most useful thing to do for each before you get here.

Severe toothache

Take ordinary painkillers exactly as the packet directs while you arrange to be seen, and never place an aspirin against the gum beside the tooth; it does not work and it burns the soft tissue. A hot, throbbing tooth that wakes you at night usually means the nerve is involved, which is precisely the kind of problem that does not improve on its own, so ring rather than ride it out.

A knocked-out adult tooth

This is the true minutes-matter emergency.

• Pick the tooth up by the crown, the white end you normally see, and avoid touching the root
• If it is dirty, a brief rinse in milk is enough; do not scrub it
• Reposition it in the socket if you can bear to, or carry it in a small container of milk
• Come to us immediately, calling as you travel

The sooner a tooth is back in its socket, the better its prospects.

A lost filling or crown

Rarely painful at first, but the exposed tooth underneath is soft, vulnerable and quick to decay or fracture. Keep the crown if you have it, since it can often be recemented, avoid chewing on that side, and book promptly rather than waiting for it to start hurting, because by then the repair is usually a bigger one.

Swelling of the gum or face

Treat every swelling as urgent and call us the same day, since it usually signals an infection that needs dealing with at its source. One exception outranks us: swelling that is spreading towards the eye or down the neck, or any difficulty swallowing or breathing, is a hospital emergency, and you should go straight to A&E rather than wait for a dental appointment.

Two habits help in every one of these situations. First, ring us before deciding for yourself how bad it is; describing the problem to someone who triages dental pain daily beats guessing. Second, do not be talked out of coming in by a lull, because infections in particular fade and return, and the quiet spell is the window in which treatment is easiest.

What happens at an emergency appointment

Knowing the shape of the visit takes some of the dread out of booking it.

Assessment first

When you arrive, the first job is assessment: your dentist examines the painful area, tests the suspect tooth and takes an X-ray if one is needed to see what is happening beneath the surface, because toothache is a notoriously unreliable witness and the tooth that hurts is not always the tooth with the problem.

Getting you out of pain the same day

The priority for the visit itself is simple: getting you out of pain the same day. Often that means definitive treatment there and then, such as a dressing, a smoothed edge or a recemented crown. Sometimes the right course is to settle the immediate problem, an open tooth dressed and calmed or an infection brought under control, and schedule the definitive fix, such as root canal treatment or a permanent restoration, for a proper appointment where it can be done well rather than fast.

Whatever is proposed, the exact price is agreed with you before treatment starts, taken from our standard published list, so the decision about what happens next is made calmly with the numbers in front of you. Emergency appointments are also unhurried on purpose: pain makes poor listeners of us all, so explanations are kept clear and short, decisions are broken into steps, and nothing is done until you have understood and agreed it.

What to bring, and what to mention

• A list of any medicines you take
• Any allergies, mentioned when you book, since both can affect what we prescribe and what we can safely do on the day
• Whether you have had the problem before, or another dentist has already looked at it, since the history often shortens the detective work considerably
• If the trouble began with a blow to the face rather than a tooth, say so when you ring

Knocks can injure more than the tooth that took the impact, and we will check the neighbouring teeth and the way your teeth meet as well as the obvious casualty. Anything beyond a dental injury, a suspected broken jaw, a wound needing stitches, loss of consciousness at the time, needs hospital assessment first, and we will say so on the phone rather than have you travel to the wrong place.

Before you leave

The next step is booked rather than left vague. If a definitive fix has been scheduled you will have the date, the fee and clear instructions for looking after the tooth in the meantime, including what is safe to eat on and which sensations are normal while things settle. If anything unexpected happens before that appointment, you ring us and we adjust the plan; an emergency patient is not discharged into thin air.

Why the early phone call is the cheap one

Dental problems run on a ratchet: they escalate but never wind back. The twinge that would have been dealt with by a white filling from £125 becomes, left for a few months, a nerve infection needing root canal treatment from £305, and a tooth left to break apart may end up beyond saving altogether. Seen early, most emergencies are small procedures; seen late, they are large ones, and the pain in between bought nothing.

Waiting also narrows your options. A tooth caught while the nerve is merely irritated can often be settled simply; once infection is established, the choice shrinks to root canal treatment or extraction, and neither is anyone’s first preference. Acting on the first persistent signal keeps the widest range of good outcomes open, which matters more than the fee.

So the economics of toothache are unusually straightforward: the earlier you ring, the less it tends to cost, in money, in appointments and in tooth. If you are weighing up whether something is worth bothering us about, our toothache guide explains what different kinds of pain tend to mean, and our abscess guide covers the signs that an infection is brewing and why an abscess is never something to sit on. None of this is meant to frighten anyone into the chair; it is simply the pattern we watch play out every week, and prompt admin turns out to be a remarkably good painkiller.

There is a comfort buried in all this that deserves stating plainly: nothing about a dental emergency improves by being endured, and nothing about ringing us commits you to anything beyond a conversation. The people who feel silly for calling about a twinge are, week in and week out, the ones who end up needing the least done.

Not registered with us? Come anyway

You do not need to be one of our patients to be seen in an emergency. People come to us in pain from Macclesfield, Poynton, Prestbury and Bollington, and from further afield when their own practice cannot fit them in; visitors staying in the area are welcome too. Ring on the day, and if we can get you in, we will. There are no joining formalities standing between you and the appointment: a few details over the phone, a medical history when you arrive, and the focus goes straight onto the tooth.

If you are ringing on someone else’s behalf, an elderly parent, a partner who hates phones, a family member visiting you, that is fine too; give us their details and we will take it from there. Bring whatever you know about the dental history involved, even if it is only the name of the usual practice. With consent we can let that practice know what was done so records stay joined up, or say nothing at all if preferred; patients remain in charge of where their care lives.

Plenty of our longest-standing patients first walked through the door as somebody else’s patient with a toothache. There is no obligation to stay afterwards, though if the way you were looked after makes you want to, the door is open.

Parking beside the practice matters more than usual when you are in pain; there is no hunting for a space or walking across town with a throbbing face, you stop the car and you are at the door. It is a small mercy, but emergency patients mention it often.

Frequently asked questions

Are you open 24 hours?

No. We’re open Monday to Thursday 8:30am to 5:15pm and Friday 8:30am to 2pm. Outside those hours, NHS 111 will direct you to the nearest emergency dental service.

Can I get an emergency appointment if I’m not a patient?

Call us on 01625 574609 and we’ll do our best to help. We welcome urgent private appointments from Macclesfield and the surrounding area, subject to availability on the day.

What should I do with a knocked-out tooth?

Time matters. Pick the tooth up by the crown, not the root. If it’s clean, try to place it gently back in the socket and bite on a clean cloth. If you can’t, keep it in milk and call us straight away.

How much does emergency treatment cost?

The same as our standard published prices, with no emergency premium: an examination is £60 (£89 for a full new patient examination with X-rays), fillings start from £95, an extraction from £126 and root canal treatment from £305. We always confirm the exact cost before treatment starts, and every price is on our fees page.

In pain? Call us now

Call 01625 574609. The earlier in the day you ring, the better our chances of seeing you today. We’re at 19 Bollington Road, Bollington, Macclesfield SK10 5EJ, about ten minutes from the town centre.

If a damaged tooth cannot be saved, we also provide gentle tooth extraction from £126, with clear aftercare and honest advice on replacement. Our guide to tooth extraction costs covers what is involved and why prices vary.

Worth reading before you ever need it: our step-by-step guide on what to do with a knocked-out tooth.