Friday 9th February is National Toothache Day, a day for building awareness of this painful complaint and how to deal with it. Treatment for toothache varies according to the cause. There are three most likely reasons – caries, trauma or a deep filling. Let’s look more closely at each of these.
- Caries is a hole in your tooth, which has caused the tooth to die. It might be a hole from a lost filling or a new hole produced by bacteria.
- Trauma can be caused by a fall or a blow which can make the tooth die. This doesn’t have to happen straightaway – it can happen years after the event.
- Deep fillings can cause toothache. If caries has been removed earlier and the filling is very close to the nerve of a tooth, the tooth can die.
Once your dentist has identified the cause of your toothache, there are three options and your dentist will advise the most suitable treatment.
- No treatment and you keep the toothache!
This is inadvisable as the pain is likely to get worse.
- Extract the tooth
This should take the pain away but may leave you with some other problems. The teeth near the extraction may move. If the extracted tooth was in a prominent place then the gap may be unsightly. Having lots of teeth removed may lead to having complete dentures eventually. Replacing extracted teeth in the future can be very expensive. An implant can cost over £2000.
- Have the tooth root filled
A root filling may need two or three visits to the dentist to complete. The dentist will remove the decay and the nerve from the tooth, then clean away the bacteria, which is normally the main cause of the pain. After placing a root filling in the tooth, the tooth itself will be filled. If there are no other problems, the tooth will be crowned. This makes the tooth stronger, which is useful as a lot of its structure will have been removed while the preparation takes place.
If you are suffering with uncontrollable toothache or an abscess and you live in the Salford, Manchester or Trafford area but do not have a regular dentist, the Revive Dental care team will try and help you.
At Revive, we have a limited number of emergency appointments available every day. While we give priority to our registered patients, we will always try and help anyone who comes to us in pain and is not registered with an NHS dentist.
We are open five days a week Monday-Friday 8am to 5.45pm. If you need an emergency NHS dentist at the weekend or Bank Holidays there is cover for these days although it may not be local.
Click here for our emergency contact details.
If you are looking to register with an NHS dentist, click here for more information.