Hi, it’s Michael Ghobrial here from Sure Dental. Last week, Michelle took a phone call from a lovely patient, Greg, who lives in Ascot. He hasn’t been to the dentist for a while, and he had a throbbing toothache that had kept him up at night.
But he was a bit nervous about coming in, because he hadn’t been to the dentist for a while, he wasn’t sure what to expect. I overheard the conversation, and it got me thinking, I wonder how many people are wondering what happens if I have a toothache, what’s the dentist going to do?
And it was nice to overhear Michelle explaining everything to him, and he came in, we saw him later that day confidently and relieved his pain. But I thought I’d record this video to let you know what to expect if you have a toothache when you go to the dentist.
The first bit of advice is if you do have a toothache and you know you have an appointment to the dentist, please try to refrain from taking any pain relief on that day, because the dentist is going to be trying to figure out exactly what the cause of the pain is, and what the source of the pain is. And so sometimes pain relief can mask that.
Now if the pain is too unbearable, it’s understandable, and please do take it. But if you can withhold those few hours before the appointment, that will be really helpful for your dentist.
- The first thing a dentist is going to do is try to assess whether the pain is actually from a tooth or whether it is something else other than teeth. So things like sinuses, when they flare up and you have severe sinusitis, it can feel like a really bad toothache. Equally earaches can present as toothaches as well, and so the first thing is, the dentist is going to ask a series of questions that’s going to help them determine whether it’s likely to be a tooth that’s causing a problem, or whether it is something else.
- The second thing they are going to do is that we look into the mouth and see if we can see what the problem is. We may do a few tests to try to identify the tooth, and then once we’ve identified the tooth, the question we try to determine is, is the tooth salvageable, and if it is, does the nerve in that tooth have reversible or irreversible damage? And we use things like radiographs, we do special nerve testing, and sometimes we put pressure on teeth and tap teeth to try to get the answers to these questions. And depending on the answers, that’ll determine how we will relieve your pain.
So if you’ve got a toothache, I want to encourage you to please do go to the dentist, and if you’re in or around Brisbane, then we would be happy to look after you. Simply complete the form on our website at www.suredental.com.au, give us a call on 07 3113 9698, or direct message us via sms or social media, and our friendly team will be in touch to help you organise your consultation. See you in the next video.
