Toothache frequently asked questions

Pain with your teeth will almost always be caused by a build up of pressure. Pain caused by a nerve inside your tooth is because the nerve is inflamed. The nerve is inflamed so has more blood in it and wants to expand. But because it is trapped inside a space in the tooth, it can’t expand and so the pressure builds. It is this pressure which is so painful. Similarly, pain from an infection is where there may be pus and bacteria trapped under a tooth. The pus is stuck under the tooth and cannot go anywhere so the pressure builds to cause pain. The way to get you out of pain is to relieve this pressure. This may be to remove the tooth or open the tooth to relieve the pressure inside.

This is probably because when you lie down in bed, there is more blood getting to your head and so it is making the pressure even higher and more painful.

If you can’t tell which tooth is hurting, the pain is probably coming from a nerve within a tooth. The nerves within your teeth do not have ‘proprioceptors’. ‘Proprioceptors’ are the things that tell your brain where a feeling is coming from. So if someone touches you on the arm, proprioceptors in the skin on that part of your arm tell your brain. But the nerves inside your teeth don’t have these. That is why it can be so hard to tell where the pain is coming from. You may not be able to tell whether it is even top or bottom teeth. You will however, always be able to tell which side the pain is; either left or right. If the pain then changes so that you can now tell exactly which tooth it is, it means that the issue has spread to outside or around the tooth where there are ‘proprioceptors’.

In your cheeks you have an empty space called a sinus. You have a sinus on each side above your eyes and underneath your cheek bone. When you have a cold, these areas may get bunged up with snot. Similar to what I said above, you are getting an increase in pressure in these areas because of all that lovely snot. Your upper back teeth have their roots near the sinus in your cheekbone and sometimes the roots even poke up into the sinus. When there is increased pressure in the sinus, this can irritate the teeth, put pressure on these teeth and even push them out of their sockets a bit that makes it uncomfortable to bite.

If you have pain, you need to go to your dentist. The idea of this section was to help you understand what you may be feeling. If you have concerns, you should speak to your dentist.