Woken up by that all-too-familiar throb radiating from your upper molars or lower bicuspids signaling another toothache’s onset? You’re likely clenching jaw muscles already dreading the days ahead grappling to function professionally and socially with persistent dental pain flaring with every flash of agony.
Yet while awaiting urgent dental treatment is wise, you needn’t suffer silently or resort to poor pain management options either. Arm yourself with smart temporary toothache relief tactics plus safer over-the-counter analgesics to power through the days ahead while securing professional restorations for lasting freedom from dental distress.
Initiating Fast-Acting Toothache Soothing
Whether from dental caries penetrations to the inner pulp nerve or fractured crowns exposing hypersensitive dentinal tubules to thermal shocks, the piercing tooth sensitivities and bolts of sheer pain arising can make simple talking, working and sleeping excruciating. Implement these immediate soothing steps while scheduling dental visits:
Numbing Gel Applications
Products like Orajel contain benzocaine anesthetics that temporarily deaden nerve sensation when applied directly to the tooth’s surface for quick relief lasting 30 minutes to an hour typically. Reapply as needed for continued numbing.
Salt Water Rinse
Swishing and holding warm salt water around the affected tooth can reduce inflammation and brings soothing relief by drawing out fluids building up and triggering pressure pain inside.
Chilled Compress
Gently holding an ice pack or even bag of frozen vegetables wrapped in cloth to the cheek can minimize swelling and dull pain signals for difficult to bear flare ups.
Clove Oil
Derived from clove plant flowers, this aromatic oil has been used for ages as a mild natural analgesic. Dab oil onto cotton swab and hold to painful teeth for modest pain-killing effects.
Finding the Best Over-The-Counter Toothache Pain Medications
For more potent and longer lasting at-home relief keeping toothache pain at bay across days until you can undergo dental restorations, oral health experts endorse reaching for these optimal over-the-counter analgesics available without prescriptions at pharmacies in proper doses.
Ibuprofen (Nurofen)
With anti-inflammatory, fever reducing plus pain killing properties, ibuprofen represents an ideal triple-threat OTC drug for battling the common blend of swelling, elevated tissue temperatures and sheer ache intensity plaguing toothaches. The standard 200mg tablets consumed every six to eight hours work quickly and effectively for most adolescents and adults enduring dental pain miseries.
Paracetamol (Panadol)
Available over-the-counter mainly in 500mg tablets, paracetamol acts as a popular pain reliever choice for general bodily aches and dental pain symptoms. While paracetamol does not reduce inflammation as ibuprofen does, stronger prescribed CODEINE combinations with paracetamol can be obtained to combat intensities ibuprofen alone cannot subsue.
Aspirin (Asproclear)
Packing peripheral pain relief, aspirin also reduces swelling and lowers fevers. But note that aspirin poses heightened bleeding risks and stomach irritation side effects with prolonged use. Other analgesics may work safer. However, for acute isolated dental pain situations, a standard low (75mg) dose aspirin tablet occasionally is reasonably effective, especially when combined with oil of clove.
What To Avoid for Oral Pain Relief
Lacking efficacies for tooth pain specifically and posing harm risks including liver damage, both patients and dental providers strongly advise against turning to these counterproductive OTC medications when hoping to reduce dental pain:
Paracetamol Combo Drugs – Formulations mixing paracetamol with opiates like codeine or oxycodone tempt with their promise of maximum strength pain relief. But devastating organ damage can accumulate with continued usage.
Aspirin Pastes/Gels – While oral aspirin use carries some merit when carefully limited per above guidance, note that aspirin-containing gels for topical dental application lack sufficient clinical effectiveness evidence and may cause tissue irritation and burns.
Whiskey/Alcohol – Though once considered a bite-the-bullet home remedy for intense mouth pains, swishing and holding hard liquors like whiskey or gin provides only modest, short-lived numbing effects given alcohols limited pharmacological pain killing capabilities. Proper oral analgesics work far better!
Clinging onto 10 out of 10 pain intensities for days without some form of intervention can challenge anyone’s sanity. But bypass the urban toothache medication myths. Stick with proven products applied judiciously together with professional dental care planning for ultimate pain control until underlying causes can be resolved once and for all!
Understanding Codeine and Toothaches
The potent opioid pain medication codeine has been used for decades for alleviating moderate to severe toothache discomfort in tablet form when over-the-counter analgesics provide insufficient relief. Typically found combined with paracetamol in co-codamol formulations, codeine works by binding to special receptors in the central nervous system to inhibit pain signal transmission, providing more potent effects than standard analgesics for short-term use.
While some global brands offer low-dose codeine as an OTC drug, in the UK products containing codeine require a prescription for dispensing and usage. This allows for proper screening, dosing guidance to limit daily consumption, plus monitoring to prevent patients developing dependence during vulnerable periods of unrelenting intense tooth pain managed in the community.
Is Codeine Appropriate To Treat My Toothache at Home?
If you’ve followed general pain relief advice leveraging OTC gels and non-opiate oral medications unsuccessfully, consulting an emergency dentist in London to obtain low-dose co-codamol tablets on a very short term basis can judiciously assist in getting past the worst 1-3 days of dental agony when no immediate dental intervention possible.
However prolonged use even for relentless toothache should be avoided, transitioning to urgent dental procedures for definitive problem resolution instead of merely masking pain ongoing. Track quantities taken and follow dental guidance to taper usage once underlying repairs initiated take therapeutic effect in controlling discomforts. Mixing codeine with alcohol also seriously intensifies risks and side effects. Call us to know the uses of best painkiller codeine for toothache to Bayswater Dental Surgery Clinic Dentists.
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