If you’re in pain right now, call 480-331-4955. The rest of this page is so you know what happens when you do.
This is the original Glisten practice — the chair on Pecos Road in Gilbert where Dr. Revan Dawood, DMD, started everything, and where a lot of our emergency patients are people we already know. If that’s you, call and come in. If you’ve never been here, the same thing is true: you don’t need to be an existing patient to be seen for an emergency, and you don’t need to explain yourself on the phone before we help you.
Here is a real one from the last month, sanitized, because it’s the most honest thing we can put on this page:
“A patient called us mid-morning because a tooth had cracked over the weekend, she’d been managing pain with ibuprofen for two days and finally couldn’t take it anymore. We got her in within the hour. Turned out to be a fractured molar that needed extraction. She came in terrified and left relieved from her pain. She said she wished she’d called Friday instead of suffering all weekend.”
The line that matters most in that story is the last one. She suffered through a weekend she didn’t have to. Don’t do that. Call when it starts hurting, not when you can’t stand it anymore.
The three emergencies we see most — and the first thing people ask
Dr. Dawood was asked what actually comes through the door, by frequency, and what the patient’s very first question is each time. Verbatim:
“1. Cracked or broken tooth. First question is always ‘do I have to lose it?’ 2. Severe toothache/abscess. First question is ‘do you have time to see me today?’ 3. Lost crown or filling. First question is ‘is this an emergency or can it wait?'”
So here are the honest answers to those three questions, before you even call:
“Do I have to lose it?” Not always. A cracked tooth sometimes can be saved and sometimes can’t — the molar in the story above couldn’t, but plenty can. We tell you which, with the X-ray in front of both of us, before anything is decided.
“Do you have time to see me today?” For a severe toothache or a suspected abscess, that’s the right call to make and the answer is usually yes — we hold same-day slots specifically for emergencies. An abscess is an infection, and infections do not improve by waiting.
“Is this an emergency or can it wait?” A lost crown or filling is usually not a middle-of-the-night crisis, but the exposed tooth can decay or break fast, and it gets more expensive the longer it’s open. Call, describe it, and our front-desk team will tell you honestly whether it’s a today problem or a this-week problem. We don’t manufacture urgency that isn’t there.
Before you call — the one thing that makes it worse
Dr. Dawood is blunt about this because she sees the damage from it:
“Putting aspirin or clove oil directly on the gum. It feels like it helps but it can actually burn the tissue and make treatment more complicated. Just take ibuprofen orally and call us. Do not delay.”
Do not pack aspirin, clove oil, or any tablet against the gum or tooth. It feels like first aid; it’s a chemical burn that makes the appointment harder and sometimes more expensive. Take ibuprofen by mouth as directed, and call. That’s the whole instruction, from the dentist.
Knocked-out permanent tooth — the 30-to-60-minute window
If a permanent tooth is fully knocked out, time is the whole game. Pick the tooth up by the crown — the white part you chew with — not the root. If it’s dirty, rinse it gently with milk or saline (not scrubbed, not soap). If you can, place it back in the socket and bite gently on a clean cloth to hold it. If you can’t, keep it in milk, or tucked between your cheek and gums, and get to us. The best outcomes happen inside roughly the first 30 to 60 minutes, so call 480-331-4955 on your way, not after you arrive.
This protocol is for adult permanent teeth. Do not try to reimplant a child’s baby tooth — call and we’ll guide you.
When to skip us and go straight to the ER
A dental office is the right place for tooth and gum emergencies. It is not the right place for these: facial swelling that is spreading toward your eye or down your neck, swelling that makes it hard to breathe or swallow, an injury with heavy bleeding that won’t stop, or a head or jaw injury from significant trauma. Those are hospital emergency room situations — go there first, and we’ll handle the dental side after you’re stable. When in doubt, call us and we’ll tell you honestly which door to walk through.
After-hours and weekends — what actually happens
We’re closed Friday through Sunday, but “closed” does not mean “on your own.” Here is the real workflow, in Dr. Dawood’s words, with our front-desk team kept unnamed on purpose:
“We have an after-hours line. Our [front-desk team] [texts] you immediately once [they see] someone tried to call the office outside of business hours. Depending on what’s going on, we can usually get urgent cases in first thing the next morning, and we keep same-day slots specifically for emergencies.”
And the part that tells you what this practice actually is, verbatim:
“One time I was on vacation and flew in for an emergency on a Saturday night. Went straight to the office from the airport and saw the patient at 11 pm. We got done with treatment by 1 am but the patient was so grateful I came back to town to see him for his emergency.”
That is not a marketing story we wrote. That’s the founding dentist describing a Saturday night she flew home from vacation, drove from the airport, and treated someone until 1 a.m. That standard is the reason this practice exists.
“Does it hurt?” — the answer, on the page, so you don’t have to ask
The question people work up the nerve to ask before calling is always the same. Here’s the answer up front: we do not start anything until you are completely numb and comfortable, and we test the numbness first so “numb” isn’t a guess. If you feel anything, we stop. An emergency does not change that rule — being in pain when you arrive is exactly why we’re careful about it.
What an emergency visit costs
The number, canonical and current, with no surprise:
“Emergency exam typically runs $50 to $100, and most insurances cover it fully or close to it. We always check benefits before quoting anything out of pocket.”
Emergency exam: $50–$100, and most insurance covers it fully or close to it. That’s the visit to find out what’s wrong and get you out of pain. Whatever the exam shows — a filling, a crown, a root canal, an extraction — is quoted separately, and quoted the way Dr. Dawood does every number:
“I always walk through it line by line with them. I never just hand someone a number and walk away. We pull up their insurance benefits together… before we ever schedule anything. No surprises.”
Being in pain is not the moment to get an unexplained bill. We check your benefits and walk the cost through before treatment, even on an emergency. The $89 new-patient exam is a separate standing offer and is not the emergency exam.
What to bring and what to expect
Bring a photo ID and your insurance card if you have one — and if you don’t, say so on the phone; we’ll still see you and we’ll be straight about cost. Bring any piece of a broken tooth or a lost crown if you have it. Expect to be seen, examined, X-rayed if needed, and given a clear, honest plan to get you out of pain — usually the same day. You will know what’s wrong and what it costs before treatment begins.
Call the founding Glisten practice
If it hurts, don’t wait for it to get worse — the patient in the story above wished she’d called two days sooner.
Glisten Dental Studio — 4365 E Pecos Rd, Ste 127, Gilbert, AZ 85295 Call 480-331-4955 on your way in. After hours, leave a message on the after-hours line and our front-desk team reaches out as soon as they see it.