Tooth pain has been an occasionally repeating visitor in my life, and over time it has pushed me to think about pain itself—its inevitability, its causes, and whether our obsession should really be about eliminating it, or learning how to live with it sensibly.
I have had my share of tooth pain in life. I was surprised to know that it affects almost everyone at least once in a lifetime and, in most cases, more than once. It seems very much like fever—something that comes and goes for nearly everyone.
That brings up an interesting question: what about people who have never had a common fever even once in their life? Do such people even exist? And if I were to draw a parallel between these two, one conclusion seems unavoidable: no matter what we do, we cannot completely stop ourselves from getting a fever or a toothache.
Conversely, if someone has never had a fever in their entire life, it likely means that person does many things right—not just a few. Such a person probably does not have any health issues of any kind at all.
This line of thinking leads to an important inference. Rather than focusing entirely on what to do or not do to avoid illness, it makes more sense to know how to deal with fever when we do get one. And similarly, how to deal with toothache.
Just as fever can arise from various reasons—from a common cold to something as serious as cancer—perhaps tooth pain too can range from simple to more severe causes. And just as a mild fever often goes away on its own in a few days, even if we haven’t taken any medicine, tooth pain too can sometimes go away on its own without any medication. And it did, everytime in my case. (Except once when unfortunately I did not give enough chance, and repenting from the cure since).
Just because it is a nagging pain that draws attention to itself does not necessarily mean it needs medicine—as long as one can bear the pain and as long as it does not extend to multiple weeks.
My own personal experience is that even when pain continued for several weeks, it eventually went away on its own. As for the cause, just as with a common fever, perhaps it is not worth digging too deeply into what might have caused it in the previous few days.
The commonly suggested remedy of clove oil helps only very temporarily—at least that has been my experience. Chewing one or two cloves and holding them in the mouth also had limited effect. Many times, I even wondered if the relief was psychological.
Surprisingly, even though it claims to be made from clove oil, the Colgate tooth pain relief cream was more effective for all my family members, including my mother.
A recommendation from an elderly dentist—to gargle with an excessive amount of salt (three to four teaspoons) in half a cup of warm water, multiple times a day—also helped in more severe cases.
Although the sample size is too small to confirm anything conclusively, the fried rice I had with too many cloves—even though it wasn’t raw—helped me get rid of tooth pain that time. It happened by accident, not by design, in how I made my lunch. Have to wait and see on another occurence if having too many cloves does help.
One thing I am certain about is that visiting a dentist is not only not helpful, but can often be detrimental to teeth safety. That said, I am not suggesting anyone to never visit a dentist in acute cases. One instance that involved severe infection and extraction led to me losing two vital teeth, and the rest of the teeth have been affected ever since. That extraction was the starting point of my ongoing tooth issues, in my view.
Several years later, a similar recommendation by another dentist in another instance—and my decision to ignore it—led me to saving the tooth, and perhaps more, with the pain disappearing in two weeks anyway. Patience and ability to bear pain could hold the key in some cases. But these are just my thoughts, and based on my experience.
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