I inherited the “bad teeth” gene from my mother and have been having painful visits to my dentist since I was a child. Every time I think that there’s no possibility that I could have another problem, one pops up. And a toothache, or dental pain, most often appears when I won’t be able to get to my dentist, or any dentist, for at least a day. That’s why I learned a few strategies for how to deal with a toothache with things I have in my kitchen.
From the old Dustin Hoffman movie, “The Marathon Man,” which also starred the late Sir Laurence Olivier as a sadistic Nazi dentist, I learned that oil of clove can stop dental pain. It’s not hard to find oil of clove; most drugstores and health food stores stock it. Apply it directly to the tooth or gum area that hurts, and relief is almost instant. I keep a bottle in my kitchen cupboard.
If you have sensitive teeth like I do, you already know that both hot and cold in your mouth can cause pain to your teeth, or cause existing pain to be worse. But rinsing your mouth with warm or lukewarm water can actually help your pain. I usually test the water by dipping my little finger in it; if it doesn’t feel warm or cold to my finger (assuming my finger is neither excessively warm or cold) then it’s just the right temperature. It doesn’t do the job as well as clove oil, but if you don’t have clove oil (if, for example, you are traveling, and the pain is unexpected) it can help. Use between two and three teaspoons of salt in about 4 ounces of water (or four restaurant packets of salt in half a glass!), allow it to warm, and rinse your mouth. If there’s anything caught in your teeth that may be adding to the pain, this has the additional benefit of helping to get it out.
Any over-the-counter pain medication that you have, whether ibuprofen (Motrin, for example), acetaminophen (Tylenol) or naproxen (AleveTM) can help tooth pain as well as any other kind of pain. For me, acetaminophen doesn’t do much; ibuprofen works best. Good old aspirin should be avoided in children, as it can cause Reye’s syndrome, and it shouldn’t be used if the pain is in your gums, nor should it touch your gums. Salicylic acid is what aspirin is, and that acid can inflame the gums. I don’t use it because I have acid reflux, and aspirin makes the reflux worse.
If you’re wondering whether to put a heating pad or an ice pack against your cheek for that aching tooth, the answer is ice. Heat will increase the pain, just as hot liquids will if you drink them. You shouldn’t drink anything cold either, because either extreme inside your mouth will just make that tooth hurt worse, but an icepack, neatly wrapped in a towel, placed against your cheek on the side the toothache is on can help to numb it. Ice placed against the area between your forefinger and your thumb for five to seven minutes can also help. That area uses the same nerve pathways to the brain as your teeth, so numbing it sends a message to your brain that your teeth are numb as well. Pressing that area (acupressure) can also help.
I practice yoga and meditation, and in the course of that practice I’ve learned that relaxing through deep breathing, especially with soft, soothing music in the background, can help ease pain, whether it’s your tooth or some other part of your body. If you can “empty your mind” in a Zen sort of way, your focus leaves your aching tooth, and your awareness of the pain will decrease.
Numbing your tooth with an over-the-counter anesthetic like benzocaine, found in gel form in brands like OraGel and as an ointment, can also provide temporary relief. As with oil of clove, you can use your finger or a cotton swab to apply it to the aching tooth and the area around it. If your tooth pain is because a filling has fallen out, try to get the swab right into the hole left by the missing filling. It will sting for a moment, but then it will go numb.
Whichever of these strategies you try, or if you have a different one of your own, be sure to go to the dentist at your first possible opportunity. Waiting when you have a toothache will usually just end up costing you more, and why prolong the pain?
