When Is Your Tooth Pain Cause for Concern?

Pain of any kind is an unwelcome development, but tooth pain has a way of hijacking your life, which makes finding relief a top priority. 

The best way to find this relief is to come see us, as your pain is likely the result of a problem in your teeth or gums that we need to address in order to preserve your oral health.

At LaSante Health Center, our team of diverse health care providers includes specialists who focus on dental health. Through our dentistry services, we provide preventive care, as well as emergency care, which makes us a clear choice for remedying your tooth pain.

In the following, we explore the most common culprits behind tooth pain and how we can quickly treat the problem so you can smile again.

Cavities

Most people in the United States have one or more cavities, also called dental caries, due to tooth decay. In fact, 90% of adults ages 20-64 have some tooth decay.

When bacteria start to eat away at your teeth, they can create cavities that expose nerves, which is what leads to your tooth pain.

The good news is that fixing the problem is often very simple. We clear away the decay and plug the cavity with a filling to preserve your tooth and relieve your pain.

Gum disease

Aside from tooth decay, the other major threat to your dental health is gum disease, which affects nearly half of adults aged 30 and older.

Also called periodontitis, this condition occurs when bacteria make their way under your gumline and begin to eat away at both the soft and hard tissues. As a result, you can experience pain in your teeth and gums.

Early intervention when it comes to gum disease is important, because we can often clear away the problem with a deep cleaning.

Root canal infection

Inside the roots of your teeth is a material called pulp. If an infection develops in the pulp, it can lead to considerable tooth pain, which can flare when you bite down on the tooth or when you drink hot or cold beverages.

Here again, it’s very important that we intervene early with a root canal procedure, during which we clear out the infection. Left untreated, a root canal infection can lead to the loss of your tooth, and the infection can spread to neighboring teeth or into your jawbone.

Tooth abscess

If you’re experiencing constant, throbbing pain, you may have an abscess, which means a pocket of pus has developed in your tooth or gums. 

This pain is hard to ignore, and you should seek our help as soon as possible so we can quickly drain the abscess and address the issue that allowed the infection to take hold in the first place. 

Depending on the extent of the infection, we may place you on antibiotics to make sure the infection doesn’t spread.

Poor eruption

Another cause of tooth pain is when a tooth doesn’t erupt properly, which occurs often in wisdom teeth. This third set of molars erupt later (ages 17-25). 

In some cases, a tooth can become impacted because it has no room or it may erupt at an angle, which interferes with your existing teeth. In these cases, we typically remove the tooth, which relieves your pain and helps preserve the health of your surrounding teeth.

There are other issues that can lead to tooth pain, such as cracking your tooth or losing a filling. Whatever the underlying cause of your tooth pain, a quick visit to our practice is your best option for relief.

To get started, contact our Brooklyn, New York, clinic. We serve the Flatbush and East Flatbush, Crown Heights, Park Slope, Little Haiti, Little Caribbean, and Prospect Lefferts Gardens communities.