My Tooth Is Paining: What the Pain Means and What to Do

What the Kind of Pain Is Telling You

Most people just say "it is paining" and leave it there. The description is what a dentist uses first, so it is worth a minute before you call.

• A sharp zing to cold or sweet that fades in seconds. Usually an exposed root surface, a small cavity or a worn filling. Annoying, rarely urgent. See why a tooth hurts with cold drinks.
• Pain only when you bite down. Often a crack, a high filling or an inflamed ligament around the root. Tooth pain when biting goes through the causes.
• A dull, constant ache. Often the nerve is irritated or slowly dying. It can be easy to ignore, which is the problem. A dull tooth ache explains why.
• A throbbing that follows your pulse, or pain that lingers after hot or cold. This is the pattern of an inflamed nerve, and it rarely settles on its own. Throbbing toothache covers it.
• Pain that comes and goes. Do not read the quiet spells as healing. Tooth pain that comes and goes explains what the gaps mean.

What to Do Tonight

• Take a painkiller you normally tolerate, at the dose on the packet. Ibuprofen tends to do more than paracetamol for tooth pain, because much of it is inflammation. Painkillers for a toothache has the detail.
• Hold a cold compress on the outside of the cheek, 15 to 20 minutes at a time.
• Sleep with your head propped up. Lying flat makes the throb louder.
• Keep food and drink away from that side, and skip anything very hot, very cold or sugary.

Keep heat off the face if there is any swelling, and do not put aspirin against the gum. It burns the tissue and does nothing for the tooth. How to stop tooth pain until your appointment has the full holding routine.

When It Cannot Wait for a Routine Visit

Come in the same day if the pain comes with any of these:

• Swelling in the cheek, jaw or gum
• A fever, a bad taste or a pimple-like bump on the gum
• Pain that painkillers barely touch
• Pain that has woken you up more than once

These point to infection. Toothache emergency signs lists them in more detail.

Do not come to us for swelling that is spreading toward the eye or down the neck, difficulty 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 sits.

If It Starts Before Shabbat

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. A tooth that has started paining on Thursday evening is worth sorting out on Friday morning rather than carrying it into the weekend, because a tooth with a developing infection does not take Shabbat off.

Dr. Joel is US-trained and treats in English and Hebrew, so you can describe the pain exactly, when it starts and what sets it off, without translating it first. Same-day appointments are possible, and our emergency dentist in Beit Shemesh page explains how a visit works. If you are on the Ramat Beit Shemesh side, we are about 2 km from you at the Ramat Beit Shemesh emergency dentist service.

What Happens at the Visit

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 a failing filling: usually just a filling.
• A nerve that is inflamed beyond recovery: root canal treatment in Beit Shemesh, which removes the source of the pain.
• An abscess: the infection is drained and the tooth is treated. See tooth abscess.
• A tooth that cannot be saved: we tell you so and talk through extraction.

Most people who come in with this have already had a night or two of hoping it would go away on its own. It is a very human plan, and it is the one that works least often.

If your tooth is paining and you are not sure how soon you need to be seen, call or WhatsApp Urgent Dental Care in Beit Shemesh on 055-985-8845. Tell us how the pain behaves and we will tell you whether it can wait.

For independent reading, see the ADA's MouthHealthy page on toothaches and the American Association of Endodontists on dental symptoms.