What to Do If Your Tooth Is Aching: A Dull Ache Explained

What a Dull Ache Usually Means

Sharp pain tends to point at one clear trigger. An ache is vaguer, which is exactly why it is easy to put off. The common causes are:

• An inflamed nerve. A deep cavity or a large old filling can irritate the nerve (the pulp) until it aches on its own, with no trigger at all.
• A crack. A crack too small to see can ache for weeks and spike only when you bite. See cracked tooth pain.
• A gum problem. Food packed under the gum or an infected pocket aches around the tooth rather than inside it.
• Clenching or grinding. A whole row of teeth feels tender, usually worst on waking. Teeth grinding and tooth pain explains the pattern.
• A sinus infection. Upper back teeth share space with the sinus and ache when it is blocked. Sinus infection or toothache shows how to tell them apart.

For a closer look at the pattern itself, dull tooth ache and throbbing toothache cover the two ends of the scale.

What to Do Tonight

• Take a painkiller you tolerate. Ibuprofen usually works better than paracetamol on tooth pain because the pain is mostly inflammation. Stay within the dose on the packet. Painkillers for a toothache goes through the options.
• Raise your head. Lying flat sends more blood to the head, and an inflamed tooth notices.
• Rinse with warm salt water. Half a teaspoon in a glass, swished gently and spat out.
• Brush and floss around it. If food is stuck between the teeth, getting it out sometimes ends the ache within minutes.
• Skip hot, cold and sugary things on that side until you have been seen.

Most people with a dull ache check it with their tongue every few minutes, in case it has changed. It has not. Leave it alone.

How Long Can You Wait?

This is the question an ache makes hard, because it does not feel urgent. Use these as a guide:

• Same day: swelling in the cheek, jaw or gum, a fever, a bad taste, or a pimple-like bump on the gum. Those point to infection. Toothache emergency signs lists them.
• Within a few days: an ache that comes back every day, wakes you at night, or is only partly controlled by painkillers.
• A routine visit is fine: a mild ache that started after a meal, settled fully within an hour and has not returned.

Do not come to us for swelling that is spreading toward your eye or down your neck, trouble breathing or swallowing, or a high fever with chills. Those need a hospital emergency room. Emergency room or dentist for tooth pain explains where the line is.

One warning about the ache that fades by itself. A nerve that has died stops hurting, and the infection can carry on regardless. A quiet tooth that ached last week has not necessarily recovered.

If the Ache Builds Toward Shabbat

Aches have a habit of getting louder on Thursday night. The clinic at Harav Kook 28/1 is open Sunday to Thursday 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM and Friday 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Shabbat is reserved for genuine emergencies only, and a tooth with swelling or fever counts. A dull ache that has been building all week is worth dealing with on Thursday, not on a Friday afternoon with the clock running.

Dr. Joel is US-trained and treats in English and Hebrew, so you can describe exactly what the ache does, when it comes and what sets it off, without translating pain at midnight. Same-day appointments are possible, and our emergency dentist in Beit Shemesh page explains how a visit works.

What the Dentist Will Do

Finding the cause is mostly a bite test, a cold test, a look at the gum and an x-ray. Then it depends on what is there:

• A cavity or worn filling: often just a new filling, with no nerve treatment at all.
• A nerve that will not settle: usually root canal treatment in Beit Shemesh, which removes the source of the ache. If it has already turned into an abscess, see tooth abscess.
• A crack: a crown to hold it together, if it has not gone too deep.
• Grinding: a night guard and a conversation, no drilling.

Sometimes the tooth turns out to be fine and the ache is coming from somewhere else. That is a perfectly good outcome, and we will say so.

If your tooth is aching and you are not sure how soon to be seen, call or WhatsApp Urgent Dental Care in Beit Shemesh on 055-985-8845. Tell us how the ache behaves and we will tell you whether it can wait. For the holding steps, see how to stop tooth pain until your appointment.

For independent guidance, the ADA's MouthHealthy has a page on what to do about a toothache, and the American Association of Endodontists lists the symptoms that point to an inflamed or infected nerve.