A painful tooth is literally in your head. That fact offers you little opportunity to find a comfortable position to neutralize the waves of discomfort, as opposed to a painfully sprained foot, for example, which you can elevate and apply ice pack to get some sort of pain relief.

Additionally, your teeth are unique “organs.” Within the body of each tooth lies the dental pulp, commonly thought of as the nerve of the tooth. In actuality, the dental pulp is more complex than that. It contains blood vessels that nourish the tooth, connective tissue, and nerve fibres. Unlike other parts of the body, the delicate blood supply to the dental pulp is limited by a tiny opening at the tip of the root and the rigid walls of the tooth itself, sort of like a solid closed container.

If the injurious insult such as a broken filling, a chipped tooth, or early to moderate decay, is not too severe, the dental pulp may be able to respond adequately to the challenge and maintain its vitality. On the other hand, if the trauma (severe physical damage, deep decay, gum disease, etc.) is extreme, your tooth’s circulatory system is not flexible enough to cope with the noxious threat. This can lead to cell death, pulp necrosis and even abscess formation (infection). Ewww…

What’s more dental nerves do not feel heat, cold, sweets, or touch. When the dental nerve is stimulated, its response is pain. While dentists may test a tooth’s status by using various stimuli including thermal testing and biting pressure to diagnose a dental problem, any reaction to such stimuli is pain. What stimulus the tooth responds to and how long the discomfort lingers is often diagnostic to the status of the pulp/nerve and helps determine the appropriate treatment which can be a bite adjustment, desensitizing application, a filling or root canal treatment.

Dental pain can be disabling – it would be quite difficult (or impossible!) to concentrate on what you’re doing. So if you are suffering from a toothache, please seek a dentist’s care as soon as you can. We feel your pain.