Whether you are experiencing a
toothache now, have experienced a toothache in the past or are hoping to avoid
a toothache in the future, your teeth will benefit very much from a routine of
good dental hygiene and regular check-ups at the dentist or dental hygienist.
It has been said that a
toothache is the most intense pain that can be experienced. Surprisingly, Teeth only feel
pain. There are no other tooth feelings. If a nerve happens to be exposed in
there, everything is pain. Cold is pain. Warm is pain. Wet is pain. Touch is
pain. There's just nothing else and that's a pretty unique situation in the
human body. In fact, a really bad toothache can feel like your
head is exploding.
Why toothache is extremely painful?
The face and head, including your teeth,
are richly served by the nervous system and make for an exquisitely sensitive
and responsive anatomic region.
The mouth and jaw are hooked directly to
the trigeminal
nerve, which is one of several cranial nerves: nerves that link directly to the
brain rather than link to the spinal cord. So, teeth are linked up to a nervous
short-circuit of sorts. Additionally, your teeth have an abundance of
neural connections to the pain centers in the brain. This seems to amplify the
noxious “distress signals.”
Why a toothache hurts so bad
When your finger is infected, it
normally swells up because of your body’s own immune response. This is possible
because the tissues in your finger are relatively soft and flexible. When you
have an infection in a tooth, the immune response is the same – but a tooth
cannot swell up the same way as a finger can. The infection is caught inside
the hard tissues of the tooth, causing a very large pressure. This is the
reason for the intense toothache. When the pressure gets too high, the
infection will start to work it’s way out of the tooth through the root and
into the surrounding bone structure. From here it will continue to push it’s
way out through the hard tissues. At this point the toothache is especially
painful. Eventually you might develop an abscess, which can normally be seen in
the mouth around the area of the root of the tooth which is infected. Sometimes
the abscess is even outside the mouth under the chin.
When the abscess bursts,
the pressure is off and many people feel an instant relief from the toothache.
This does not mean that the problem is solved, however. The reason for the
toothache - the infection - is still there and treatment is necessary.
What can be done about a toothache?
There are only two ways of treating
an infected tooth effectively. The simple solution is to pull out the tooth but
ideally it’s not advisable if you have restorable tooth. Since most people feel
that it is best to keep their teeth as long as possible, however, the more
common and preferred treatment - when possible - is root canal therapy. There may
be a need to combine the treatment with medication to control the infection.
