Toothache Diagnosis and Treatment
Chicago, IL
Toothache Diagnosis and Treatment provided by Our Team of Dental Experts
in Chicago, IL at East Village Dental Centre
 Dental practices are primarily established to address issues related to dental health. One common issue is a toothache, which manifests as discomfort or pain in the vicinity of a tooth. This discomfort is an indicator of potential issues with your teeth or gums. At East Village Dental Centre, we are ready to assist you in managing your dental discomfort.
Categories of Toothache
Mild, Continuous Toothache
A frequently encountered form of toothache is mild, ongoing discomfort. Although it may seem alarming, this kind of toothache is often attributed to straightforward reasons, such as trapped food particles between teeth, teeth grinding (bruxism), or objects lodged in the gums. Typically, this variety of toothache does not necessitate a visit to our clinic. Employing dental floss and mouthwash can effectively dislodge any trapped food bits from your teeth or gums. However, should the mild, ongoing ache stem from teeth grinding, we recommend reaching out to our dental professionals for optimal care solutions.
Tooth Sensitivity
Tooth sensitivity to hot and cold substances is another type of toothache, and it can be quite serious compared to a dull, persistent ache. Tooth sensitivity is easy to determine because you only feel it when you drink or eat something hot or cold, and your tooth reacts to it immediately. Sensitive teeth might heal after using toothpaste designed for sensitive teeth. If the pain lasts for more than thirty seconds, it is likely a serious problem attributed to a fracture, tooth decay, a worn-out filling, or gum disease.
Sharp Pain
Sharp and jabbing pain requires visiting our practice. This type of pain could indicate that a crown or filling has fallen out or become loose. If you do not have a crown or a filling and you experience sharp pain, it could be a sign of a tooth fracture, wear, or decay. The enamel covering your teeth might also have cracked, or you might have a cavity. Our dentist can identify the cause of the problem and recommend effective treatment.
Severe, Throbbing Pain
Some toothaches cause severe, throbbing pain that is considered distracting and unbearable. This type of pain requires immediate attention from our dentist, who will address the problem on the spot or give you pain medication and schedule an appointment for treatment if the problem is not easily fixed in a day.
Causes of Toothache
Tooth Decay and Dental Cavities
Dental cavities are the most common cause of toothaches. Your teeth have cavities when you notice any openings on the surface of the tooth or the side. When you do not brush your teeth regularly, you are a good candidate for dental cavities, which emerge as small holes in the tooth that grow deeper and larger as time passes. Sugar from the food you eat also mixes with saliva, which slowly eats away at your tooth. Some cavities are hard to notice, and they usually grow to cause toothaches when the nerves of the roots become inflamed.
Abscessed Tooth
An infection within the tooth makes it abscessed. An abscessed tooth makes the gums swell and infect the root, causing severe pain and possible bone loss at the injection site. An abscessed tooth occurs when you do not treat your cavities when they are small, allowing them to progress to reach the pulp chamber, which then results in any of the four most common types of toothaches.
Gum Disease
Gum disease causes inflammation in the gums. Its primary cause is poor dental hygiene, which causes plaque buildup. The bacteria found in the plaque make the gums red, bleeding, and swollen. Gum disease is painful, and it can result in tooth loss if you do not seek treatment.
Trauma and Injury
A dental injury, especially one that results in a broken tooth, can cause intense pain. If your tooth gets knocked out completely, you might feel a severe form of toothache. You should immediately visit our practice, where our dentist will either restore the lost tooth or provide a replacement for the toothache.
Wisdom Teeth
Wisdom teeth cause intense pain when they are partially or fully impacted, are hard to clean, or become infected with gum disease. Our dentist might perform a surgical extraction of the tooth to ease the pain.
Teeth Grinding
You can also experience toothache as a result of bad dental habits, such as teeth grinding. When you grind, clench, and gnash your teeth, you are causing their deterioration and applying excess stress on your jaw muscles. Consistent grinding results in at least one type of toothache.
Toothache Treatment
Restorative Treatments
At our practice, we treat toothaches depending on the cause of the pain. If your tooth is affected by the dentin layer but it has not affected the tooth pulp, our dentist might use restorative filling and a cavity liner to treat your toothache.
If our dentist notices that your toothache is a result of an infection in the pulp, they might recommend a root canal treatment. This procedure involves debriding, shaping, and filling the resultant opening of the tooth. If the treated tooth is not strong enough, our dentist might suggest a dental crown to cover the tooth to keep it safe from further deterioration.
Finally, our dentist might recommend an incision and drainage to treat a dental abscess and relieve the toothache. The underlying cause of the abscess will also be addressed. Before you leave our clinic, you will be given treatment for any other extra-oral causes of toothache or pain.
Medication
Our dentist can also prescribe some analgesics, including diclofenac sodium, aspirin, naproxen, or ibuprofen, to reduce the pain in your affected tooth. You will also be given antibiotics to treat a periapical infection or a dental abscess.
Toothache Prognosis
You can completely lose your tooth as a result of a toothache. However, you can save your tooth and let it continue functioning for a long time if the problem is identified and treated as early as possible. If you must have your tooth extracted, our dentist can recommend replacing the resultant gap using an artificial tooth.
Treat Your Toothache With Us
Do not reduce the quality of your life by enduring a debilitating toothache. There are treatment options that relieve the pain or eliminate it. Visit East Village Dental Centre to discuss available treatment options. Contact us at 773-341-9325 to schedule your appointment today. |
