Explore the comprehensive guide to severe tooth ache symptoms. Discover the underlying causes, from ear pain to sinus issues, and learn effective ways to find relief. Get the answers you need to manage your dental health.

Severe Tooth Ache: Unraveling the Symptoms

Severe tooth ache can be a debilitating experience, causing discomfort, pain, and disruption to your daily life. Understanding the various symptoms associated with this condition is the first step in seeking the appropriate treatment and relief. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll delve into the different symptoms of severe tooth ache and explore their underlying causes.

Ear Pain: A Surprising Connection

Ear pain can be a surprising symptom of a severe tooth ache. This is due to the intricate nerve distribution in the mouth and head. The nerves that provide sensation to the upper teeth have branches that extend to the ears as well. As a result, an infection or issue with a tooth can sometimes manifest as ear pain. Conditions such as an abscessed tooth, broken tooth, gum infection, or even temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder can lead to this type of referred pain.

Sinus Pain: When Teeth and Sinuses Collide

The roots of your upper teeth often extend into or in close proximity to your sinuses. When you develop a sinus infection, it can impact the teeth in this region, leading to a severe tooth ache. Conversely, a severe tooth ache can also trigger sinus pain and discomfort. Typically, as the sinus infection clears up, the associated tooth pain will also subside.

Swelling in the Gum Tissue: A Sign of Infection

Swelling in the gum tissue is a common symptom of a severe tooth ache. This swelling indicates the presence of inflammation and fluid retention around a tooth. The swelling often appears as a bubble-like formation on the outer gum tissue, and it may even ooze pus, signaling an underlying infection or bacterial buildup. Causes of this type of swelling can include wisdom tooth issues, an abscessed tooth, dental or facial injury, or a gum infection.

Sharp Shooting Pain: Nerve Irritation Revealed

Sharp, shooting pain is a hallmark symptom of a severe tooth ache. This type of pain is typically associated with nerve irritation or inflammation. When a nerve is pinched or traumatized due to an infection or other underlying condition, it can send sharp, quick signals of pain along its pathway to the brain. This nerve-related pain can radiate through the jaw or tooth, making it a challenging and uncomfortable experience.

Tenderness to Touch: A Sensitive Reaction

If you have a severe tooth ache, your entire jaw may become tender to the touch, making it difficult to chew food or even brush your teeth. This tenderness is a sign of inflammation or infection within the affected tooth or surrounding tissues. Teeth that are tender to touch are often indicative of an underlying issue that requires professional attention.

Pain Worsening When Lying Down: The Pressure Connection

Have you noticed that your severe tooth pain seems to worsen when you lie down? This phenomenon is often related to changes in blood pressure. When you lie down, your heart doesn’t have to work as hard to pump blood to the upper part of your body, including your jaw and affected tooth. The increased blood flow and pressure in the affected area can exacerbate the pain, which is why many people with a tooth ache wake up in the middle of the night with severe discomfort.

Migraine Headache: The Unexpected Consequence

A severe tooth ache can also lead to the development of a migraine headache. The intense pain from the tooth can cause muscles in the head, neck, and back to tense up, resulting in a debilitating migraine or tension headache. Additionally, temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder, which can be triggered by a severe tooth ache, can also contribute to the onset of migraines.

Seeking Professional Help: The Path to Relief

If you are experiencing any of the symptoms described in this guide, it is crucial to seek professional help from a dentist or dental specialist. They can perform a thorough examination, identify the underlying cause of your severe tooth ache, and develop a personalized treatment plan to provide you with the relief you need. Don’t hesitate to reach out and take the first step towards a healthier, pain-free smile.

Severe Tooth Ache: Symptoms part III

part I – part II – part III

Symptoms of a severe tooth ache in detail continued: what do the symptoms mean?
Ear pain
Just as in referred or radiating pain, ear pain can be associated with a severe tooth ache because of nerve distribution.  Nerves that give sensation to upper teeth have branches that go to the ears as well.  Because the nerves in your teeth and ears are connected, and ear infection can cause tooth pain and a tooth infection can cause ear pain.  Some things ear pain can be associated with are: an abscessed tooth, broken tooth, gum infection, ear infection and tmj.

Sinus pain
All of your teeth have a long root that is imbedded into bone.  This is what anchors your tooth to your body.  The roots of your upper teeth often extend into or close to your sinuses.  If you develop a sinus infection, it can impact your teeth if they are in close proximity to your sinus cavity.  Many people develop a severe tooth ache when they get a sinus infection.   Typically, when the sinus infection clears, the severe tooth ache dissipates.

Swelling in the gum tissue
Awelling often accompanies a severe tooth ache.  Swelling indicates that there is inflammation and fulid retention around a tooth.  Most swellings occur on the outer part of the gum tissue above or below a tooth.  It often looks a like a bubble and sometime pus can ooze out of this swelling.  This type of swelling is usually associated with an infection and bacterial build up.  Swelling can be caused by a wisdom tooth, abscessed tooth, dental or facial injury or gum infection.

Sharp shooting pain
If you have a severe tooth ache, sharp shooting pain is often a symptom you will experience.  Pain that shoots through your jaw or tooth quickly is usually related to an irritation in the nerve.  Your nerve communicates sensory information to your brain.  When a nerve is pinched due to inflammation or irritated and traumatized due to an infection, it can give you sharp shooting pain along its pathway to the brain.

Tenderness to touch
Anytime you have a severe tooth ache, your whole jaw can become tender to touch making it difficult to chew food or brush your teeth.  Teeth that are tender to touch are often infected or inflamed.
Pain worsens when lying down
If you have severe tooth pain that worsens in a lying down position, it usually has to do with pressure.  When you lay down, your heart does not have to work as hard to pump blood to the upper part of your body, therefore, if you have a severe tooth ache, the increased amount of blood pressure to your jaw and tooth can cause the pain to significantly worsen.  That is why many people with a minor tooth ache wake up in severe pain in the middle of the night.

Migraine headache
A severe tooth ache can make your whole head hurt.  It can cause muscles to tense in your head, neck and back leading to a migraine headache or tension headache.  TMJ disorder can also lead to a migraine headache.
 
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 4th, 2012 at 7:16 am and is filed under Tooth Aches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Ear Pain Can Be The Sign Of A Dying Tooth Nerve

Posted on December 22, 2015December 25, 2017 by Dr. Michael Baharestani

Dr. Baharestani

Root canal specialist (endodontist)

Great Neck, NY ,Roslyn, Port Washington, Manhasset, Bayside, New Hyde Park, Albertson, Mineola and surrounding NYC areas.

Root canal treatment is a procedure to treat a tooth that has suffered irreversible damage to the tooth nerve. This damage may have been brought about by decay or trauma to the nerve. Common causes of root canal damage are as follows:

• Tooth decay has penetrated through the tooth enamel and the dentin to invade the nerve and pulp within the root canals and chambers.
• A tooth has become infected or abscessed due to unchecked tooth decay.
• Chipped or broken teeth allow the nerve of the tooth to become exposed.
• Age can cause the tooth to slowly die.
• Past trauma that went untreated or did not require treatment at the time may have progressed to the point of requiring a root canal treatment.

Root canal treatments are essential dental services in being able to prolong the life and use of the tooth. If these serious issues are left unchecked, it can cause abscesses, infections may spread to other teeth or the mouth,  and other oral and dental problems can arise.

But how can you and your dentist tell if you need this done?

The Signs You Need a Root Canal

Firstly, pay attention to any pain or symptoms that you might have. Your dentist will question you during your checkups whether or not you’ve experienced any sensitivities or pain, and you must be ready to answer him. Then, the dentist will take a peep in your mouth…

HOW YOU KNOW:

• Severe tooth pain, which often persists for extended periods of time. Pain may interrupt your sleep. This pain is due to the pulp (nerve) dying or becoming infected or abscessed at the tip of the tooth. As anyone who has had a toothache can attest, there are few things in life more painful than a severe toothache!
• Pain radiating into your jaw, ear, or temple areas
• Pain when biting down or when touching the tooth. This pain will be due to the inflammation or infection at the root tip, which feels the pressure of being pressed down into it’s socket. This can irritate the root area.
• Sensitivity to heat is a classic sign of tooth pulp being severely damaged
• Sensitivity to cold, even after the stimuli has gone, such as a glass of ice water. It is not uncommon for teeth to be sensitive to cold, such as the sharp sensitivity after eating a spoonful of ice cream, but normal sensitivity dissipates rapidly and does not linger.
• Darkening of the tooth as compared with teeth alongside it.
• A swelling or abscess on the gum above the offending tooth, often taking the appearance of a pimple. It may discharge pus, have a bad smell or create an unpleasant taste in your mouth.
• Broken or chipped tooth. This is a sign that the tooth has been severely degraded. These conditions usually cause significant pain.
• Signs of other decay, such as cavities or cracking teeth.

While the need for a root canal is usually punctuated by several of these symptoms, you may still have no symptoms, and yet, need a root canal. There are times that a tooth will have died within the socket, and as the nerves are no longer living they are unable to trigger a pain response.

If you’re experiencing any of the symptoms described, contact our office to schedule an appointment as soon as possible.

HOW YOUR DENTIST KNOWS:

When these symptom-less problems appear, it’s vital for your dentist to assess the need for a root canal procedure based off a few observations and simple tests. The objective of your dentist will be to discern if your tooth problems will be rectified by root canal treatment, or if the damage may yet be slowed or reversed, in which case a filling may be a viable option. A good dentist will be able to catch any occurring problems during your routine visits, limiting the amount of damage the tooth will suffer.

Your dentist will observe the condition of the teeth, and check up on any previously performed dental work. He will examine the color and condition of the gums of the teeth. He will also perform an X-ray in order to observe any signs of infection. A condition that has similar symptoms to root canal conditions are periodontal gum abscess, and an X-ray may rule out this possibility.

Other tests he may perform are as follows:

• Application of heat and cold to the tooth – This is done in order to check the health of the nerve and observe your reactions.
• Tapping of the tooth or having you bite down – As noted above, when the root tip is inflamed or irritated, the pressure of being pressed into the socket will trigger pain or discomfort.
• Checking the vitality of the nerve – By utilizing a special device called an electronic pulp tester, the dentist can assess the health of the nerve.
• Routine dental X-rays – These will demonstrate for the dentist any ‘silent’ root canal issues that are not creating the usual symptoms. In these situations, the nerve damage is usually still very minimal and may be rectified with a filling, rather than a full root canal procedure

Toothache – how to get rid of and how to treat, causes and first aid

Toothache often takes us by surprise, makes us change plans, postpone important meetings, disturbs healthy sleep and significantly reduces the quality of life. It is not always possible to predict its appearance, but if you carefully monitor the health of the oral cavity, visit the dentist in a timely manner for prof. inspection, you can significantly reduce the risk of its occurrence.

It can be of a different nature, intensity, depending on the cause. Let’s analyze its main types.

Types of toothache

• Sudden and short – occurs when eating sweet, salty or sour foods. After cessation of exposure to the stimulus, the tooth does not hurt, so the patient rarely sees a doctor. The cause of toothache is caries of the initial, medium degree. As it progresses, the pain intensifies, takes on a pulsating character, and can occur at night.
• Acute, aching – can give to the jaw, ear, temple. The tooth hurts so much that any movement, turning the head, trying to say something causes severe discomfort. The cause, as a rule, is pulpitis – a lesion of the neurovascular bundle located inside the tooth. If caries is not treated in a timely manner, inflammation progresses, affects the dentin and pulp, edema occurs, which begins to press from the inside on the walls of the tooth.
• Periodic – occurs for several reasons: neglected (chronic) form of pulpitis, poor-quality root canal treatment, enamel cracks or tooth trauma. To identify the cause, choose the tactics of treatment, the dentist will prescribe an X-ray examination.
• Pain when biting, chewing localized in a certain element. There is a feeling that the tooth sticks out of the row, interferes. This is due to the development of periodontitis – the spread of inflammation to the surrounding periodontal tissues due to neglected pulpitis.
• Intense continuous, pulsating character – radiates to the neck, the ear occurs during the development of the flux. The flux is accompanied by severe edema, the inflammatory process spreads to the jawbone, periosteum. General well-being suffers: body temperature rises, weakness appears, submandibular lymph nodes may become inflamed.

Also, pain can occur after tooth extraction, with increased sensitivity of the enamel or due to causes not related to dental health (ear inflammation, trigeminal neuralgia).

How to get rid of a toothache?

Toothache relief is possible if the underlying disease is cured. Therefore, the dentist is faced with the task of determining why a particular patient has a toothache. To do this, he conducts a thorough examination, in some cases, additional examinations (sighting image) are necessary.

After determining the cause of the occurrence, the dentist determines the tactics of pain relief, treatment of the underlying disease. Treatment of pulpitis, caries comes down to cleaning the cavity, root canals from softened tissues, followed by filling. Poorly treated canals are subjected to unsealing, processed and sealed again.

How to treat a toothache is determined by a dentist in each case individually, so you need to contact dentistry as soon as possible. To temporarily weaken it, as a first aid, you can take an anesthetic in consultation with your doctor. Also, rinsing the mouth with a water-salt or soda solution can slightly reduce the intensity of pain.

In our Denta-ARS clinic in Moscow, dental pain is treated by qualified dentists under the strict guidance of a chief physician with over 30 years of experience. Modern equipment, certified materials, affordable prices and high standards of dental services are the advantages of our dentistry.

You can make an appointment and find out the preliminary cost on this website.

All about toothache that radiates to the ear – causes and remedies

Pain is the most common complaint that is addressed to the dentist. It can be strong, weak, superficial or deep. In many cases, it does not have a clear localization, and patients note that the pain radiates to the ear. This is a disturbing and unpleasant feeling. It is quite difficult to establish the cause of the symptom with the uncertain nature of the pain.

Why toothache radiates to the ear

Pain in the ear is observed with a disease of the lower molars, and anterior to the tragus – the upper molars. More often it appears due to deep caries and its complications. Diagnosed with the eruption of the wisdom tooth, alveolitis, amphodontosis.

Advanced form of caries of the outer teeth

Caring for molars, or molars, is more difficult. In this regard, carious processes are often launched. The development of caries leads to the fact that not only the tooth, but also the ear begins to hurt. The pain in the ear is aggravated during eating, closer to the evening.

Pulpitis

Pathology appears as caries progresses. The inflamed pulp causes severe spontaneous pain. Not only the tooth can be disturbing, but also the ear close to it, the back of the head and cheek. Irradiation is observed along the corresponding branch of the trigeminal nerve. Painful sensations are both short-term and long-term.

Alveolitis

Develops due to infection, extraction injury. It is characterized by an inflammatory process of the walls of the socket of the extracted tooth. Pain syndrome appears 1-3 days after removal, accompanied by fever. At first, the pain is aching, inconstant. Later intensifies, becomes constant. Often gives to the temple or ear.

Endodontic treatment of a tooth

During the rehabilitation of molars, the filling material can get into the mandibular canal. This leads to post-filling pain, which is considered a response to tissue irritation by the injected substances. The intensity of the inflammatory process depends on the chemical composition of the drug.

Extraction of the third molar or wisdom tooth

Pain in the ear after the removal of a wisdom tooth is due to its proximity to the trigeminal nerve. Damage may occur during the procedure. Also within 5 days there is a high risk of dry socket. This means that the blood clot that forms after the extraction of the tooth and helps to heal the wound has been washed out or disintegrated. A dry socket is dangerous because it exposes bones and nerves and causes intense pain.

How to get rid of unpleasant symptoms

The choice of method for eliminating pain depends on the cause that caused it. Do not self-medicate: warm, rinse or take pills without consulting a doctor. The insidiousness of the pain syndrome is that it is characteristic of various diseases. In some cases, before a visit to a specialist, you can alleviate the condition.

Ear pain due to caries

You can relieve the pain a little with the help of anti-inflammatory pills. In such cases, nimid or ibubrofen is recommended. The drugs should be taken after meals in the indicated dosages for no more than 5 days. Fans of traditional medicine use a natural antiseptic – garlic. It is crushed and applied to the aching tooth.

What to do with pulpitis

The pain in this pathology is often unbearable. Therefore, usually patients with such a disease tend to get to the doctor faster. Treatment can be carried out by biological and surgical methods. In the first case, the tooth is treated conservatively, in the second, the pulp is completely or partially removed. After the cause is eliminated, the pain in the ear stops.

How to treat alveolitis

All methods of treatment are aimed at eliminating the phenomena of inflammation in the hole. The process is stopped by taking anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and desensitizing agents. The method of treatment is determined by the dentist after an x-ray.

Elimination of post filling pain

The appearance of pain in the ear after the installation of the seal is a reason to remove it.