How can I stop tooth pain fast?
The easiest answer to that is to go to your dentist as soon as possible. Most patients that I see when they're in a lot of pain, excruciating pain, the kind that wakes them up in the middle of the night or the kind that will only go away if they're on constant ibuprofen or Tylenol, often had a tooth bothering them for days, weeks, or months. It was so small or more of an annoyance instead of a pain that it went ignored. Teeth are like jealous girlfriends; if you keep ignoring them, they'll come back with a vengeance.
My best advice is anytime you feel something that doesn't feel right, that is your body's way of letting you know something is not right and it should get attention right away. Rather than waiting for it to get really bad, just go and get it checked out. It could be that there's something wrong with the tooth itself. Other times, after people have gone to the movies or eaten popcorn, the part that's not digestible, the little clear shell around the popcorn, often gets stuck or wedged between the tooth and the gums, and that's really simple. You never know what it can be. Stop imagining the worst, just go and get it checked out and get it taken care of.
What is the longest-lasting solution for getting rid of tooth pain?
First, before I can answer that, let me help you understand how tooth pain comes about. The design of our teeth is the exact same design as our nails, something hard surrounded by skin. Skin in the mouth we just call gums. All your life, all my life, I've been able to cut my nails, the white part, and it doesn't hurt. That's because that's the non-living part of the nail. However, when I've accidentally cut too short or torn a nail and it went into the pink part, which is the living part of the nail, that's when it really hurts. The design of our teeth is the exact same thing. When teeth first get cavities or rot or break, it usually doesn't hurt because it's in the non-living part of the tooth.
However, if allowed to continue to get worse, deeper and bigger, and it gets into the living part, that's when the pain hits. The best longest-lasting solution is to handle whatever is getting closer or has struck the living part of the tooth. The next best solution is to prevent these things from happening. We prevent that by going to your regular checkups and cleanings so that we can help prevent the bad things from happening.
What are the common reasons for tooth pain?
One is coming of age, meaning when wisdom teeth start to grow in, and most people don't have a mouth big enough to fit the wisdom teeth. Wisdom teeth are the teeth that grow in all sorts of ways in all sorts of directions. They could be growing out like this. They could be growing towards the tooth, right? As these wisdom teeth try to grow in, they create more and more pressure. That is another advantage of regular checkups for your kids; we can see the progression and prevent your child from going through unnecessary pain. It'll be okay. It's time to get the wisdom teeth out so that we can prevent that situation.
Another reason for tooth pain is when the tooth starts to rot. A cavity is just a fancy word we dentists made up for rot found in our teeth. Just like fruits and vegetables, once it starts rotting, it doesn't ever stop on its own. See this black part right here? This is an imaginary cavity or the tooth had started to rot. Once the rot hits the living part of the tooth, the tooth starts to die, right? That will usually cause pain. However, when the pain starts to fade away, it's because the tooth has already fully died.
What I tell my patients is this: if I were to stab you right now, it would really hurt because you're fully alive. But if I were to wait until you died and then stabbed you, it wouldn't hurt because you're already dead, right? That's a phenomenon that most patients have said, you know, it did hurt, but then the pain went away. Now, when I see them, they're either swollen or the pain has come back a lot more painfully. What has happened is the tooth has died, and then pus starts collecting at the end of the root. As pus starts to build up, the pressure starts to build up and it squeezes the blood vessels. That's why most people will also report it feels like it's throbbing, right? As the pus builds up, pressure builds up, and now the pain starts to feel like it's radiating or spreading. That's what's going on. Once you start to feel any semblance of pain, like you're biting on something and it feels odd and you find yourself trying to chew on the other side, go and get it checked out. It will only get worse. Get it checked out and get it taken care of sooner rather than later.
The other reason for pain is you're eating something and the tooth breaks on you, right? Typically, I'll see that when a tooth has a really large filling and that tooth needed a crown in the first place. Let's say this hand is the tooth and this fist is the filling. Whenever a tooth is more filling than actual tooth structure, all it takes is the perfect storm for you to be chewing and enjoying something nice and crunchy like chips, chicharón, right? Tostadas, right? The crunchy piece of the tooth lines up where the crunchy piece of the food lines up where the tooth and the filling meet. Right angle with the amount of pressure. It's like driving a wedge, and then crack goes the tooth.
Just like when you're cooking eggs at home and you crack an egg, you cannot plan where those cracks go or how deep those cracks go. If the crack gets to the living part, that's when it starts to get painful. We often can see a tooth over time as it gets wear and tear starting to crack. Depending on how deep or how long the crack is, that's when we can recommend getting a crown on that tooth to prevent an accident from happening and again unnecessary pain.
What are some of the common nondental reasons for tooth pain?
The most common one I see is when a patient has sinus issues because we have sinuses right here and our back teeth, our back upper teeth, the roots actually go into the sinus and it stretches into the bottom of the sinus. If someone is going through a sinus infection or is getting clogged up, it can actually affect or feel like pressure through the teeth. That is one of the main causes or main things that I see that is nondental related, but it'll show up as the patient saying, I don't know, I'm starting to feel some pain here.
The other non-dental reason that I've seen for teeth pain is someone getting hit in an accident and the jaw quickly got dislodged a lot more and it takes time because of the jaw and our teeth and how our teeth line up. I've seen that either in sports injuries or car accidents or really bad falls, patients will feel some type of pain. We always have to check out like is the jawbone intact? Are the teeth okay? Is the jaw joint okay? Those are the common reasons, nondental reasons that I see for tooth pain.
What do I need to do when I'm experiencing extreme or unbearable tooth pain?
I've actually lived through this while I was in college. I reached for extra strength ibuprofen or extra strength Tylenol and that did the trick until it was time to take the medication again. What I would say is go ahead and reach for either the extra strength ibuprofen or Tylenol and get to a dentist as soon as possible.
Medication only masks the symptoms but it's not taking care of the root cause of the pain which is usually from the tooth. Something has gotten to the living part of the tooth. You want to take care of this instead of masking the symptom of the pain and continuously taking pain medication.
Is it normal to feel tooth pain after dental procedures?
The answer to that is yes. Depending on what the dental treatment was, the patient can feel after effects of the treatment. Here's my model again. The closer the damage to the tooth is, either rot or breakage. How we deal with rot is probably how you deal with rot. If you decide to save fruits that had started rotting, meaning I do this all the time. I'm about to eat an apple or a banana and I see a brown spot. I just decide to cut the rotten part out and enjoy the good-looking part. How we cut out rot in apples, I don't cut right at the edge. I cut a little into the good part to make sure I got all the rotten parts. That's what we do with our patients' teeth. If you look at my model, you see this dark spot. This is early stage rot. I'm just going to cut around it.
After I've cut this rotten part out, I've essentially created a small hole. That's when we dentists decide to do a filling. Now, let's say the rot is getting closer or actually into the living part of the tooth. That's when we dentists decide to do a root canal and crown. Typically, most people associate the dental treatment with pain and I let patients know it's not the treatment, it's the degree of damage the tooth was already in.
The best analogy I can come up with would be our skin. If you've gotten a paper cut, it stings, but because it's shallow, it heals up real quick and you just feel a minor sting, an annoyance, right? Now, if I were to get a cut, then the area around it feels sore, right? Because it's deeper damage. If I were to scrape my arm, now the damage is deeper. When I go to do something simple like clean off the wound, it hurts but it needs to be done so that it doesn't heal without an infection. It's the same thing with teeth. The degree of damage or rot or breakage, and the closer it is to the living part will increase the risk of the patient feeling either soreness or pain after dental treatment. It just depends on how big or how deep the damage is that we're trying to treat.
At Sunbrite Dental, your dental health is our priority. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to call our team at (702) 819-0866, or you can email us at [email protected]. Our staff would love to talk with you!
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