What was your worst-ever toothache?

I have an aching tooth. Damn! It really hurts like a hellcat! I can''t afford the dentist, I might have to sell some of the neighbor''s kids to pay for it!\ \ I''ve tried Anbesol, an aspirin (okay, three) pressed to the gum, two shots of rum and 2 mg. of Ativan and I am starting to get numb everywhere but my tooth, which I am surprised is not glowing red like a coal!\ \ I''m just rocking back and forth making a slow song in a minor key out of my bitching and moaning.\ \ Tell me it gets better, or my head will eventually explode, or SOMETHING will end this misery.

Go to the dentist no matter what it costs. It won''t gonaway on it''s own. Try a local dental college and ask ifvthey do free work, most do.
There''s something funky going on, OP.\ \ I had plenty of funds for the next month as of Sunday (surprise) and then two $400 ''emergencies'' popped up this morning wiping out my checking cushion.\ \ Go to the dentist and be prepared for a root canal. They''ll have to kill everything and it will smell and you will drool afterward. The temp lasts a long time, however.
Yeah, but what are they going to do, pull it?\ \ Three more shots of rum, then I drink the Anbesol, and maybe it will go away. Right?
Can they save the tooth with a root canal?\ \ I don''t know what I could have done to my tooth to make it this PISSED off. I brush, I floss, I mouthwash with the plaque-fighting stuff the dentists say they use.
No it won''t go away. Stop medicating yourself and call a dentist.%0D\ %0D\ It''s cheaper to get it pulled if you are really that cash poor, BTW.
It may be abcessed, OP -- worst toothache I ever had was that. If the infection enters your bloodstream, it can kill you. Go to the DDS immediately.
My worst was a wisdom tooth with a huge cavity. I was young and broke so I went to a dental school. They pulled it for $6 (this was in the 1970''s) but I had a lot of pain afterwards because the dental students had to jab me so many times to numb the tooth. That''s actually the only time I''ve had a toothache; my teeth are pretty good but I have had periodontal problems over the years.\ \ More recently, I had an abscess several years ago, not in a tooth but a piece of food got stuck in the gum. It was very painful and my face swelled up. Naturally, it happened on a weekend. I was older and richer so I got myself to the dentist ASAP. Once antibiotics cleared it up, I had minor gum surgery and have been going to the dentist regularly ever since.
If the pain really came on suddenly without prior discomfort, a filling or piece of your tooth probably fell out. It might not be a root canal.
Is it in the front or the back?
OP think of what R6 said and just try to do the right thing even if it you would rather not. \ \ And please stop medicating before you literally OD or something, man.
Go. To. A. Dentist. Immediately.\ \ It gets worse. Much worse.
Someone who''s been there. Many times
Get some hydrogen peroxide and swish it - straight up, not diluted - around in your mouth. It''s gross, and will foam up. This will temporarily alleviate some of the pain UNTIL you get to the dentist.
It''s in the front. The gum between the canine and first molar is inflamed, and I believe it''s the first molar that is sending me waves of deep pain. It''s hard to localize with the anbesol, everything''s as numb as I could get it (including my nose). But the deep pain seems to come under the molar. Lower right. Favorite chewing spot.\ \ I''ve flossed and brushed and my entire mouth is now as clean as a surgical suite, but something feels angry down below the gumline.\ \ No fever. Only brave tears.
MOM!
I''ve relented and left a voice message on my dentist''s answering machine trying to explain my predicament in the calmest possible terms.
Put ice on it to dull thee pain.
I will wring out this rag and get fresh ice, R15.\ \ I want to fall asleep as soon as possible. The ativan and rum are helping quite a bit now.\ \ Thanks for your replies, I hadn''t felt that lonely for a while but that was some intense pain. IT''s fading a bit.\ \ You didn''t hear me cry for MOM, just remember that when the eulogy writer comes to you for anecdotes.\ \ I love you guys.
Extra Strength Excedrin%0D\ %0D\ Listerine Total Care%0D\ %0D\ Call your Local County Health Department Dental Clinic. Payment is determined using a sliding fee schedule based upon income.
I had to have a root canal last month. I was in agony, too. The only relief I got was from Vicodin. %0D\ Get to a dentist ASAP.
As a comfort OP, the pain you are feeling right now is much less than you will experience from an actual root canal. I''ve had about 7 root canals and really once your numb, turn on your ipod and chill out.
[QUOTE]I might have to sell some of the neighbor''s kids to pay for it!\ \ What''s the problem there?
OP I am so serious when I say this:%0D\ %0D\ I knew a woman who had a bad toothache.%0D\ %0D\ Then she died.%0D\ %0D\ REALLY.%0D\ %0D\ Her tooth was abscessed and the infection went straight to her kidneys. It was completely senseless and treatable.%0D\ %0D\ Go to the E.R. if you have to. At least you can be treated if you have an infection.
the pain you are feeling right now is much less than you will experience\ \ God thanks.\ \ I''ve heard this before, long before I came into this saturation.\ \ I honestly don''t know what you mean. I will experience MORE pain? And I''ve gotten so GOOD at it now?\ \ Or, my skilled doctor will provide me with the deep needle anaesthethic that will HURT first and send deep ache THEN flower and rend this horrifying pain into a melody of ethereal abstract beauty to be enjoyed by way of earpods in another dimension...\ \ Because I am all for anything that releases me from my body while this one motherfucking tooth decides it is the main point of sensation getting all the attention.\ \ 3rd rum by now. I hear a fair!
[quote]What''s the problem there?\ \ The neighborhood kids might not believe what I say about the circus and it being a CAMP. At some point they might return home and then all hell breaks loose (unlike my tooth)
One of my friends had a root canal and said that she went in terrified about the possibility of extreme pain, but it nowhere reached any of her expectations. And, believe me, she''s generally a whiner.
OP is sounds like you have an abscess. You NEED to go to the ER right now. I had an abscess a few years ago - one side of my face was swelled up and the pain below my molar felt like I was being stabbed with a red-hot needle. When I got to the ER they drained the abscess, put me on antibiotics and then I went to an oral surgeon for a root canal the next day. The oral surgeon told me that people DIE from ascesses because the blood gets poisoned from the infection.
A few years back there was a story that made headlines about some poor kid who died of a tooth infection because his mother couldn''t afford to get him dental care.%0D\ %0D\ A link between heart disease and dental health has been established. Dental insurance is just as important as medical insurance, yet most people have no or limited dental insurance.
I remember that story, R26. And I have never had a root canal, but people who have say that it is not that painful. It sounds worse than it is.
OP: that sounds like the worst toothache I ever had. As some have already said, go to a dentist ASAP, because now that you''re at the point where no painkillers work, it will only get worse. You can walk-in to the clinic and they''ll take you on an emergency basis. If that''s not possible (ie, it''s after office hours) do what you can to numb the pain until the office opens.\ \ Don''t let anyone scare you about a root canal; I had one, and it wasn''t that big a deal to me. Just make sure, when he''s deadening your mouth, that you''re not shy about letting him know that you can still feel even the slightest twinge (took me 20 minutes before I was completely numb).
Anonymous
Take 10 Ativan tablets, go to sleep and spare us the misery.
Forgot to mention that my root canal was painless. My mouth was totally numb, and after the root canal was done and the novacaine wore off, it felt much better. The area around my molar was a little sore for a couple of days, but that was it. If you''re worrying about a root canal OP, you shouldn''t. Root canals today are not painful like they were years ago.
R25
I have a feeling that they OP is out from the rum and Ativan. I hope he''s OK enough to drag himself to the DDS tomorrow. All this talk of abcesses is making me worry for him.
what r21, R25 and R26 said, Go to the ER now.\ \ If the pain is that great, you may have an abscess. They won''t do any dental procedure if you have an abcess, it''s treated with antibiotics first.\ \ Any kind of infection can goes straight to the heart and kidneys because of the tiny blood vessels in your mouth. I knew a couple of nurses who ended up with heart and kidney problems because of an infection in their mouths. One lady lost her kidneys.
RN
Go to a specialist for the root canal - not a regular dentist. I cannot emphasize this enough.%0D\ %0D\ I had a regular dentist root around in my tooth and he touched the infected nerve with his instrument. I sobbed like a baby in the chair and all the way home.%0D\ %0D\ That afternoon I saw an endodontist and had a painless root canal procedure. The endodontist has a microscope and could see everything on a screen. The powdered valium under my tongue before he began sure helped me make it through!
The tooth might be cracked. The worst toothache I ever had was that.\ \ Tooth had to be pulled. \ \ Don''t f around. Go to the dentist!
I used to get infections around my wisdom teeth that hurt like hell. One was so bad that I could barely open my mouth and the side of my face was swollen. Unfortunately I''ve never had dental insurance and couldn''t afford to go to the dentist, so I would swish with Listerine 3-4x per day and after a couple of days the infection was gone. \ \ I recently got an actual toothache earlier this year and freaked out because now I''m unemployed so emergency service was definitely out of the question (I don''t even qualify for free service at a clinic because unemployment "pays me too much"). I tried Listerine again and after a week the pain was gone.
Wish we had free dental care
I broke my left molar late August, 1997. I was waiting tables and had to go home a little early from work due to the throbbing pain.\ \ After I took some aspirin and packed the tooth with crushed cloves (it really works, btw), I settled in for a night of television. Suddenly, CNN broke with the story of Princess Diana in a car crash.\ \ I gasped.\ \ Seriously, though, I forgot about the tooth pain.
Seriously, you do not want to fuck around with bad teeth. Even if you have to beg for help from a dentist and write a bad check. Whatever it takes, because it WILL haunt you in the future.
My worst? A throbbing, expanding, burning scream of a pain that shot down my shoulder and arm. But I have nerve damage so neural things tend to go off like fireworks. I went to my dentist. He said I needed a root canal and and sent me to a specialist because it was a molar. So I had a root canal. I wanted a crown. But they said the root was cracked and it had to be extracted. So then I had to go back to the dentist. Pain less but still not comfortable. I stopped to see my mother and father, who were in the same nursing home. Then to the dentist. He tried to extract the tooth, and after an hour and a half announced he had lost the root in my sinus and I needed to immediately go to an oral surgeon. With blood oozing out of my gauze-stuffed mouth I drove across town, was treated like crap by the surgeon's staff, and had "surgery" where he drilled a hole in my jaw and fished the root of the tooth out. By then my face was swelled out like Charlie Brown and I was delirious. I called my partner and told him I was stopping for a prescription and would be home, not realizing he couldn't understand me. My father died the next day. I was too sick to be sensible and drugged to properly grieve. It took two weeks for the swelling to go down. Meanwhile my mother had started a series of four surgeries that eventually led to her death four weeks after my date with the dentist. That was my worst experience. It was nine months ago and the dentist is now badgering me about a check-up and I have (honest to God) PTSD and can't face the thought of going back. The dentist and oral surgeon waived all charges, because the dentist screwed up.
Geez, r38. I want to just scoop you up and cradle you.\ \ That is fucked up.
Horrible toothache from a defective crown put in by another dentist. Part of the tooth died, so I ended up having an extraction. After the extraction, I had a dry socket. Not good times!
Toothless
After years of neglect, insane tooth pain drove me to the dentist earlier this year. Since then I''ve had about 10 diff. procedures, each one virtually painless (including root canals and without gas). Modern dentistry is *nothing* like it used to be.
Tooth pain is the worst. I had a tooth start to hurt around 2pm at the airport at the beginning of a 3 day get-away weekend. By 9pm that night I was curled up in bed in pain, my only thought was to find a pliers to pull the sucker out. I was able to get ahold of my dentist who phoned a local pharmacy for painkillers and an anti-biotic. It ruined the weekend, the meds never really took the pain away. I had a painless root canal on Monday morning.
I had an agonizing toothache, it was abcessed and I had to go on antibiotics and have the whole damn thing pulled out. Which wasn''t the worst of it, a few months later I developed an abcess inside my abdomen which ruptured, landing me in the hospital for over a week! There was no reason for that abcess to be there, I still think some germs from the abcess in my tooth had migrated and set up a new home.%0D\ %0D\ So, OP, that''s why I''m urging you to sell your couch, beg your local dentist for a payment plan, or find a free dental clinic or dental college. If you don''t treat a dental abcess quickly it can do horrific things to your body, which can cost a lot more than a going to the nearest dentist right now.
Wonder what happened to op
Several years ago I developed a sudden, sharp pain in my jaw and it turned out to be an abscess that required an immediate root canal. It was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life; it felt like a red-hot needle was repeatedly stabbing me in the jaw. Awful!
I got better drugs from my root canal than I did when I had surgery for cancer. I was a little miffed.
Put oil of cloves on it until you can get to a dentist.
http://dentistry.about.com/od/issuesandemergencies/qt/The-Use-Of-Clove-Oil-In-Dentistry.htm
Who the fuck can't afford to go to the dentist?
If you REALLY can't afford the dentist, you have to pull the tooth. Dentists will charge hundreds for something you can do yourself, although even at the dentist it is much cheaper than a root canal.
How, R49?
There's a website for everything.
http://www.1dental.com/articles/dental-insurance/no-dental-insurance/
Get a tea bag and get it wet in very warm water. Hold the tea bag to the sore spot. Should bring some relief for a little while.
I woke up with a toothache at 5:00am on a Sunday (of course it happened on a weekend, when all the dentists' offices were closed) and frantically searched the yellow pages for anything that might be open. I found a dental clinic that was opened on the weekends that was almost an hour away from my house. I was waiting in my car in the parking lot when they opened at 9:00am and lo and behold they told me I had an abscess. Since it was one of my back molars that nobody could see, I just had them pull the damn tooth and I was fine afterwards. Anybody who has an abscessed tooth has my sympathies - those things are the worst pain ever!