It actually works! (Toothache cure)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My alternate title was “Well I’ll be damned!”.

A little prerequisite reading to understand my post:

I was kept awake all night last night with a severely painful toothache. I would not wish this kind of pain upon my worst of enemies. My teeth usually hurt most of the time, considering the fact that I have a wonderful genetic trait that results in a disease called AI, or lose all the enamel off your teeth really fast syndrome. I have crowns on my 24 remaining teeth, and I have had two abscesses and 6 root canals over the past four years.
I am assuming this is my third abscess.
Long, long, frustrating story cut very short: My dentist was out of the office today, and the pain was (is) driving me insane. I called him at home, he phoned in prescriptions for Etodolac, Hydrocodone, and Amoxil. Good stuff, it makes you real drowsy, dopey, and unsafe around heavy machinery. My body felt great, but the tooth pain persisted.
Grandma tells me her maw to make her put fresh cloves in thier cheeks to ease the pain. Being all doped up on painkillers, I figured, “Hey, what could it hurt?”.

Having no fresh cloves handy, and being in possession of a jar of “Ground Fancy Cloves”, I decided to make up a little salve with water and clove dust. Tastes like rotten assholes soaked in gasoline (don’t ask, its a longer, less coherent post;) ), but it actually works! The tooth (teeth, now, it’s getting worse) still throbs, but the pain has been lessened greatly.

I just thought I’d share this completely mundane and pointless information while I wait for the Etodolac stuff to kick in and (hopefully) put me to sleep.

I just need to figure out how to make a few ounces of this stuff to take to work tomorrow…

[sub]I previewed, but if there are any typos, I’m blaming it on the drugs[/sub]

2

Hmm. Interesting-- I might try that some time. I get toothaches sometimes, too (I have odd teeth but my situation doesn’t seem as bad as yours sounds and has reached equilibrium in recent years). I’d tried the thing with pressing an aspirin against the gum/tooth, which also tastes like ass. I remember as a kid how traumatising ora-jel was, but as an adult I recognize it for the wonderous stuff it is.

3

According to my quick research, Clove oil has a high content in Eugenol, some sort of chemical that does good things…Don’t know exactly what it is or how it works, but apparently it’s a fairly well known cure. They say that actually clove oil works best, I wish I could get my hands on some of that tonight.

4

Just go to the drug store. In some obscure corner, along with some other old-timey remedies, they will have little bottles of clove oil used to relieve tooth pain. It’s pretty cheap too, if I remember correctly.

5

Gee, didn’t you guys ever see “Marathon Man”? Once you do, you’ll NEVER forget the clove oil trick. Trust me. Never.

(By utter coincidence MM was on tonight on Bravo – I watched it for the first time in decades. Great flick! The '70s sucked in every way you could think of, except, boy, they made some good movies in that decade.)

6

These folk remedies became folk remedies because there’s something to 'em, folks. My mother grew up in Tennessee, and the older generation used tobacco poultices and herb remedies and stuff like that there.

While it’s not necessary in this age of medical advances to keep cloves on hand for toothache, or certain herbs to make liniment, it may not be a bad idea to know how to make simple remedies from things around the house, for emergencies or quick first aid, I mean. Did you know hot pepper sauce and petroleum jelly make a good salve for sore muscles? Baseball trainers in the old days used to use it on their pitcher’s arms. The same stuff that makes it hot also relieves muscle aches.

7

My dentist uses clove oil (many do) on my teeth after a root-canal, before the final filling or crown prep. It’s supposed to help sooth reduce the swelling and irritation of his creative dental work.

8

Stuyguy, Marathon Man is how I knew about clove oil.

For those who haven’t seen the movie or read the book. The bad guys torture the Dustin Hoffman character by drilling holes in his teeth and letting him feel the pain of the exposed nerves for awhile. Then they would put clove oil on to stop the pain for a few minutes before drilling another hole or two.

Of all the books I’d read in the 70’s, that scene is the one I remember the most. wince

9

>> I’d tried the thing with pressing an aspirin against the gum/tooth, which also tastes like ass

Any dentist will tell you NOT to do this. Aspirin is an acid and will damage your gums. Leave it long enough and you can do some serious dmage to your gums.

10

TheOtherOne -

Clove oil is a natural aneasthetic, you just have to be careful not to use it for prolonged periods and neglect seeing that dentist. Cloves in hot tea make a nice soothing beverage when you have a sore throat too.

My favourite treatment for tooth or jaw pain is by using acupressure.

Get an ice cube and hold it frimly between your the thumb and index finger of the hand that is on the same side as the pain. ie if the pain is in the right side opf your mouth then you should be holding the ice between the thumb and index finger of your right hand.

The results can be utterly amazing although there are a few people for whom this technique is uneffective.

Take care.