Tooth pain can be excruciating and severely disrupt your everyday life. Even if you find pain in your mouth tolerable, you should not ignore it. Pain often signifies an underlying problem with your oral health that warrants urgent evaluation and treatment from a dentist.
You might notice that tooth pain can present in a variety of ways, and each degree of discomfort can point to a different dental concern. You should schedule an appointment with your dentist to find the specific cause of the pain and an accompanying resolution. But you can discover three types of pain you might feel in your tooth as well as what they could mean for your overall oral health when you read on.
Tooth Sensitivity
If you have ever bitten down on a food item and felt a sudden burst of pain in your tooth, you are familiar with tooth sensitivity. This intermittent type of tooth pain can inhibit your oral behavior by making you change your eating habits to avoid this discomfort.
The pain occurs when an external stimulus, like food, touches an exposed nerve in a tooth. Usually, the outer layer of enamel shields underlying nerves within a tooth. But if enamel erodes or weakens, stimuli can reach the nerves that transmit signals of pain to the brain.
The pain will stop when you remove the stimulus from the nerve. But just because the pain can fade does not mean it is not important. Weakened tooth enamel means that your smile is susceptible to further dental damage.
Other dental issues, like cavities, may also be the reason you suffer from tooth sensitivity. So make sure you talk to your dentist about this symptom. Enamel cannot restore itself, so you will need help from your dentist to relieve this tooth pain.
Dull Chronic Toothache
A dull ache in your tooth can feel annoying, but even if you think you can endure this discomfort, you should still tell your dentist about it. A constant toothache like this often occurs due to pressure on the teeth. This may happen on an acute basis if you have food stuck between your teeth.
But you should not ignore the symptoms because the pressure on the teeth could make them shift out of their straight position over time. Certain chronic behaviors like grinding or clenching the teeth will also create similar pressure that can lead to dental alignment issues. Crooked teeth can both disrupt the look of your smile and harm your oral health over time.
Throbbing Oral Pain
An intense, pulsating pain in the tooth will warrant enough discomfort to reach out to your dentist right away. A number of problems within the tooth could lead to this severe amount of pain. For instance, an infection could develop in the tooth pulp. This will usually require root canal therapy to treat.
You might also suffer a fracture in the tooth. Sometimes, tooth breakage does not present with a visible crack. Consult your dentist as soon as you can if you think you sustained a tooth injury. Without prompt treatment, the issue will worsen.