Is Immediate Pain Relief Always Possible?

What to Expect When You Visit Your Dentist with a Painful Problem

If you’ve ever had a toothache then you know how uncomfortable it can be. In fact, this is probably the most common complaint that sends people to an after hours dentist. If you experience dental pain, you might worry about how much your dentist can actually help with it. After all, how much can they do apart from give you painkillers? Well, they can actually do a lot more than give you some tablets. To understand all the ways your dentist can alleviate your dental pain, keep reading.

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Causes of Dental Pain

There are a number of things that can cause dental pain and send you to the after hours dentist. Some of the most common are:

• Tooth decay or a cavity.

• A cracked tooth.

• An abscess.

• Damaged dental work such as a broken filling or crown.

• Gum disease.

• Infection.

• Damage or strain caused by repetitive movements such as grinding or chewing.

Dental Solutions to Pain

If you’re suffering from dental pain, the first thing your dentist will do is treat the problem. So if you have a cavity, they will put a filling in. If you have an infection, they will treat the cause of the infection and clean the infected tissue. This will help to completely eliminate the cause of the pain, prevent further problems, and return you to normal functioning again. There are a number of options that your dentist can offer for pain relief including oral medication, laughing gas, and IV sedation.

How Long Until You’re Pain Free?

In most cases, your dentist can eliminate your pain almost immediately with the three different pain options available in the clinic. Once the pain is alleviated, the source of the pain can be treated. This will eliminate the pain at its source so you’re comfortable once the painkillers wear off. If the pain returns after the treatment, then it means you need to visit your after hours dentist again.

As Dr. Oberoi from Emergency Dentist Sydney says, “If the pain gets worse or comes back it means that something has gone wrong or the issue hasn’t been addressed.” So talk to your dentist if you experience any further problems.

The only real exception to this is if you have a severe infection. Dr. Oberoi warns that, “In terms of pain relief we try and alleviate the pain straight away, and a lot of times we can. But in the case of severe infection it can take 24 to 48 hours for the pain to go away completely.” Which is all the more reason to visit your dentist before a problem gets to this stage.

What About Surgical Pain?

If you have some kind of dental surgery there will be some pain and discomfort afterwards. This is the case for any type of surgery, and it can usually be treated with over the counter pain medication. But you can also minimise your discomfort by choosing the right dentist for the surgery.

Dr. Oberoi states, “It depends on how the surgery is done. If the surgeon is careful to cause little trauma, then there’s less pain. That’s why it’s important to get the right people for your dental surgery.” So before you have any dental surgery, make sure that your dentist is well trained and experienced. That will help ensure that you have the best outcome possible from the procedure and it will cut down on your recovery time as well.

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Emergency Dentist Sydney Says:

If you’re experiencing dental pain, contact Emergency Dentist Sydney. Our caring and expert staff are available 24 hours a day to help you with all your emergency dental needs.

Do All Toothaches Come From Bad Hygiene?

The Truth About Your Sore Tooth

If you have a toothache you might worry that it’s because of bad hygiene. This worry could make you embarrassed to visit your dentist, because you don’t want to be told that you aren’t taking care of your teeth properly. But there are a number of reasons why your tooth might hurt and send you to the after hours dentist, and some of them have nothing to do with your oral hygiene. If you want to understand why your tooth is hurting, here are some of the most common causes.

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The Effects of Bad Dental Hygiene

As Dr. Oberoi from Emergency Dentist Sydney says, “Toothaches are caused by nerve pain, gum infection, trauma, wisdom teeth, grinding, or extreme sensitivity. There are a lot of reasons why your teeth may hurt.”

However, problems associated with toothache are most commonly caused by bad dental hygiene. That’s why it’s so important that you brush and floss regularly and visit your dentist for regular check-ups. This will prevent any problems from getting worse and help you avoid getting a toothache.

The most common dental problems caused by bad dental hygiene are:

• Tooth decay or cavities.

If you have a toothache, it’s very likely that it’s because you have tooth decay because this is the most common cause of dental pain. Tooth decay is caused by poor oral hygiene. So make sure you brush and floss regularly if you want to avoid a trip to the after hours dentist with a hole in your tooth.

• An abscessed tooth

If you ignore tooth decay for a long time it may result in an abscessed tooth. This is an infection within the tooth that occurs when a cavity penetrates down to the pulp of the tooth. It can result in severe pain, infected and swollen gums, and can even result in the loss of a tooth.

• Gum disease

If you neglect your oral health it will do more than make you more likely to get a cavity. It can also cause gum disease. Gum disease occurs when plaque builds up on your teeth and isn’t regularly removed. Plaque contains millions of bacteria which attack the gums, causing redness, swelling and bleeding. If gum disease is left untreated it can cause tooth loss and other serious problems.

Toothaches That Aren’t Related to Hygiene

There are also a number of common dental problems that can cause a toothache and aren’t related to your dental hygiene. These include:

• Injury or trauma

This is a very obvious cause of pain. If you fall or hurt yourself during sports you can crack a tooth or damage your gums, both of which cause pain. If this occurs, see an after hours dentist as soon as possible to avoid further damage.

• Wisdom teeth

Most people just don’t have room in their mouth for their wisdom teeth. This doesn’t stop them growing however, and if there isn’t room for them they can become impacted. This can result in infection or it can push your other teeth out of alignment. When wisdom teeth become impacted they’re very painful, and the pain is usually centred at the back of the mouth. So if you experience this pain, visit your dentist as soon as possible to avoid further problems.

• Teeth grinding

If you grind your teeth at night you probably won’t know it until your teeth start to hurt. Grinding can wear down the enamel on your teeth, causing pain and trauma as well as other dental problems. So if you think that you grinding your teeth then you need to talk to your dentist about it as soon as possible.

A number of dental problems can cause pain and some of them are caused by poor oral hygiene. But this isn’t all bad, because it means that you can avoid these problems by taking care of your mouth and teeth and by visiting your dentist for regular check-ups.

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Emergency Dentist Sydney Says:

If you have a dental emergency, contact our Emergency Dentist in Sydney. Our caring and expert staff are available 24 hours a day to help you with all your emergency dental needs.

Acute Pain

What to Expect

Pain in the tooth has been recorded to be the second most painful form of pain in the human body. Acute tooth pain can be very discomforting. It is an experience that should never be gotten as it is always difficult to forget experiences like that. This is because the pain takes all of you and you just cannot get yourself to concentrate on any other thing. No one who has ever had a tooth pain prays to keep having it.

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What are the Causes?

Acute pain can be caused by a lot of factors which ranges from coming from the upper part of the tooth to the ones radiating from deep within the gum. Tooth pain can also be gotten as a result of infections from other parts of the body associated with the tooth. Some of the main causes of acute tooth pain are:

• Tooth Decay: This is a major factor that causes acute tooth ache and it is due to bacterial infection. It occurs when the bacteria traversed through, reaching the roots of the tooth thus causing an abscess. The pain can be very terrible and highly unbearable.

• Fractured Tooth: When a tooth is fractured, the nerve gets exposed and the exposure of a nerve causes excruciating pain because nerve exposure usually leads to the formation of an abscess.

• Gum Disease: When the gum of an individual is infected and not quickly treated, it can lead to an inflamed gum, periodontitis and other root canal infections and this also is a leading cause of acute tooth pain.

Symptoms

When toothache occurs, some of the obvious symptoms that it comes with are:

• Confusion and severe headache

• Persistent increase in temperature

• Obvious swelling and palpable tenderness of the gum and generally in the mouth

• Blurred and/or double vision

Treatment Options

Acute pain should be taken as an emergency situation and be treated as such. The first and main treatment is to contact your dentist right away. This is important because the pain might trigger lots of other problems and complications might arise. While preparing to see the dentist though, some of these treatments can be quickly applied:

• Properly rinse your mouth with warm water in order to get it cleansed.

• Take two tablets of Ibuprofen or Advil and then wait for three hours.

• Then, take two Panadol tablets and then wait for another three hours before repeating the second step.

These tablets to cause a significant reduction in the swelling in case there is an inflammation and also reduce the pain to a bearable minimum. It is very important to note that you should not directly apply aspirin, you should see your dentist instead.

Before getting to the end of these treatments, you must have been able to reach your dentist and get the proper care.

In cases whereby the pain is severe, has lasted more than a day or you have other associated pain apart from the toothache, it is very expedient to see the dentist quicker because other treatment options may be needed as all these may be due to abscesses or deep root canal infections and it warrants more serious treatments such as:

• Extractions or removal of the tooth

• Filling of the tooth

• Gum or Periodontal treatment

• Root Canal treatment

All these would require serious treatment and some minor surgical procedures, but, there is no need to panic as long as you visit the right dentist.

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Emergency Dentist Sydney Says:

If your toothache is severe, follow these emergency dental care tips. If it has lasted for more than 24 hours and you just can't take it anymore, give us a call.

I Have an Abscess

So You Have an Abscess. What Does That Mean?

Your mouth is a sensitive and delicate area which is why there are so many things that can go wrong if poorly treated. Dental hygiene is vitally important as well as visiting your dentist regularly. One very major mouth problem is abscesses. If your mouth or jaw is aching and there is swelling and pain, you may have an abscessed tooth. Here is a guide on everything you need to know about abscesses.

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What is an Abscess?

An abscessed tooth is an infection within a tooth. It is a pocket of pus that forms at different regions of the tooth and for different reasons. A gingival abscess (gum abscess) occurs on the surface of the tissue at the gum line of the teeth. If left untreated, it can lead to a periodontal abscess which the abscess on the tissue of the gum line drives deeper into the gum pockets. A periapical abscess commences in the soft pulp of the tooth, which later on will travel down to the nerves of the tooth.

Wherever the location of your abscess, it will become inflamed and can swell severely, obstructing your ability to chew or swallow properly. The abscess will keep growing and causing more pain so it is important to visit your dentist as soon as these symptoms occur.

Other symptoms of an abscess usually include:

• A reddened area around the site

• A bad taste in your mouth

• Swollen face

• Sensitive teeth to hot or cold food and drinks

• Swollen glands in the neck

• A pea-sized bump inside the mouth

As your condition advances, you may experience other symptoms such as a fever, vomiting, chills or nausea.

Where Do They Come From?

An abscess usually occurs because of poor dental health. Your mouth naturally contains bacteria but when your teeth are not regularly cleaned well, plaque will form on your teeth and gums, resulting in infections and decay. Other possible causes include:

• Gum disease (gingivitis)

• Dental injury (cracked tooth)

• A poor diet

• Some medications

• Neglecting small wounds in the mouth or surgical sites from previous dental visits.

How Can They Be Treated?

If you have an abscess, you need to visit your dentist immediately. This is especially important if you feel sick or have any other symptoms of an advanced infection. The treatment depends on the seriousness of your condition but usually your dentist will drain the site to get rid of the pus and give you painkillers and antibiotics to combat the infection. A root canal treatment can also be carried out. A tooth extraction only happens if it is a severe infection of the tooth that cannot be saved.

If your abscess ruptures at home, before you can get to the dentist, rinse with warm water to help clear out all the pus and see your dentist as soon as possible.

Why You Shouldn't Delay Treatment

Waiting for the pain to subside or delaying treatment is the last thing you want to do. The pain may stop but that doesn’t stop the infection. The infection will continue to spread, leading to bigger problems. Early treatment can cure the infection and save the tooth.

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Emergency Dentist Sydney Says:

If you suspect an abscessed tooth, it is crucial to visit a dentist as soon as possible, even if you are not in any more pain.