What’s the Quickest Way to Cure a Toothache?

shocked face for elgin emergency dentist blog

My tooth started off just being irritable a couple days agobut now I’ve got a full-blowntoothache. It is horrible. I’m telling you, it is the worst pain I’ve everfelt, and I’ve given birth with NO drugs. TWICE. I work in IT and am on a bigproject right now that involves a large company’s entire network being shutdown. I’m under immense amounts of pressure to get their systems back up andrunning. I could literally lose my job if I come to the dentist now. Please,tell me there’s a way to treat this at home or at least make the pain manageablefor a couple of days. What’s the quickest way to cure this toothache?

-Melissa

Dear Melissa,

The quickest way would be death, but it’s not recommended.

Try to find an emergency dentist.

In all seriousness, though, this is a dental emergency. Youreally do need to see a dentist. Now. At this point, it’s impossible to saywhat’s causing your toothache. It could be that you’ve got an infection. Thismay sound like a scare tactic, but it’s not. People genuinely die fromuntreated tooth infections. In America. In modern times. One studylooked at people who were hospitalized and diagnosed with a tooth abscess. Overan eight-year period from 2000-2008, 66 of them died. Although we don’t havehard statistics including those who weren’t hospitalized, it clearly happensmuch more than people think. A toothache is something you don’t want to messwith.

You could also be dealing with a broken or cracked tooth, inwhich case the dentist could possibly have you totally taken care of in onevisit—just choose someonewho does CEREC crowns or similar to start with. You can go from diagnosisto having your final restoration in a couple hours. Sometimes less.

If you can’t get to a dentist, find a physician.

Because infections have the potential to spread fast, andlead to death, and you don’t yet know if that’s what you’re dealing with, youreally do need to seek some kind of medical or dental help. If no dentistsaround you offer emergency appointments, try to get into an urgent care or similar.At the very least, the doctor can take a look and prescribe antibiotics if they’reneeded. This won’t help the underlying problem. If there is an infection,something’s probably going on that’s causing it and it will come back as soonas the antibiotics wear off. Then, you’re back to square one. Really, this willonly buy you time and is something you could do after-hours or during lunch andit shouldn’t impact work.

Then again, you could potentially see a dentist under thesame circumstances and get a real diagnosis, and possibly treatment. Ultimately,the choice is yours, but there’s no magic or quick cure here. You need to go inand have it looked at somewhere.

This blog is sponsored by Dr.Steve Sirin, an Elgin emergency dentist who offers same-day appointmentsfor urgent dental needs.

Connect with Us

We look forward to meeting you.
Call (847) 742-1330 or request an appointment online to set up your first visit. We’ll be in touch soon.