Do Toothaches Affect Your Sanity? the Sacramento Dentistry Group Answers.

Do Toothaches Affect Your Sanity?

Toothaches cause considerable pain, and medical professionals place them in the top 3 for excruciating situations. What happens if you ignor

​While people experience pain from many different sources, when it is localized in the mouth, the mental anguish it causes can be excruciating. Unfortunately, many people put off the very thing that ends the ordeal — a visit to the dentist — because they fear the treatment more than the toothache.

The Question of Sanity

The top three pains for their excruciation are child birth, kidney stones, and dental infection. Toothaches, dental infections, gum infections, and jaw infections are very serious. These conditions can lead to death if not treated immediately… People died of dental infections quite commonly before the twentieth century.

Dr. Brian Steele, DDS

Whether a toothache affects the sanity or not is probably a question best left for a psychiatrist, but it certainly alters the ratio of certain chemicals in the body as the organs respond to the source of stress. In addition to the nervous system and endocrine system, toothaches even involve the immune system reacting to the threat of infection. To use just one example of a body chemical released due to toothache, cortisol is produced as a pain response. In excess, this hormone is implicated in reduced memory function, declines in neurotransmitter effectiveness and side effects akin to depression. All of this points to the primary lesson about toothaches — seek treatment immediately!

How Bad Is It?

A dentist at the Sacramento Dentistry Group comments: “The top three pains for their excruciation are child birth, kidney stones, and dental infection. Toothaches, dental infections, gum infections, and jaw infections are very serious. These conditions can lead to death if not treated immediately… People died of dental infections quite commonly before the twentieth century.” This illustrates the need to not delay in seeking professional assistance when you experience mouth pain.

What Causes Toothaches?

As the dentist mentions, infection is a primary cause, but broken teeth, exposed roots, nerve disorders and cysts or tumors can also lead to tooth pain. All of these conditions are best treated, not in a hospital or the emergency room, but at the office of a dentist. In the majority of cases, a dentist can cure a toothache in one visit. For those with dental anxiety, anesthetic and sedation make the procedure more than bearable — in some cases the patient does not even remember what happened afterwards!

Do Not “Tough It Out!”

Toothache almost never goes away by itself. Homespun remedies and merely taking painkillers often results in treatment delays that only worsen the situation. The simple fact is, people experiencing a toothache need a dentist’s help right away, not do-it-yourself solutions plucked off the Internet! For assistance with toothaches and other forms of dental pain, contact the Sacramento Dentistry Group at (916) 538-6900 where they accept emergency patients for expedited procedures.

Source: Sacramento Dentistry Group

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