Toothache is not a disease, it can be fatal when it hurts. “This type of toothache mostly refers to dental neuralgia, which is an inflammatory lesion that occurs in the pulp tissue, also known as pulpitis. Myelitis is a common dental disease that not only affects dental health, but also brings a lot of pain to patients
There are many causes of pulpitis, including dental caries, which we often talk about as a “small hole not filled into a big hole”. If dental caries are not taken seriously, they will eventually damage the dental nerve and cause pulpitis. Especially the adjacent caries caused by food impaction, due to its concealed location and difficulty in being detected, many patients come to the clinic with the depth of the cavity already affecting the dental pulp. Therefore, it is important to be alert to black spots and lines on the tooth surface, seek medical attention and have teeth filled in a timely manner. This can not only prevent the expansion of dental cavities, but also nip the cause of pulpitis in the early stages.
Tooth fissures are also a major cause of pulpitis. The reason why patients seek medical treatment is often due to “biting hard objects that cause a slight pain, and also pain when exposed to cold or heat, which can only be relieved after a while”. Therefore, in daily life, do not use your teeth to bite too hard things, such as nut shells, crab legs, or opening beer bottle caps with your teeth.
If it develops into pulpitis, it is clinically divided into chronic pulpitis and acute pulpitis. Chronic pulpitis is usually manifested as pain from eating hot and cold foods, and sometimes it also hurts when exposed to a cool breeze; Once acute pulpitis occurs, patients usually suffer from excruciating pain that keeps them awake at night, feeling half of their face throbbing with pain and unable to distinguish which tooth is at fault. Even taking anti-inflammatory drugs is ineffective.
The main treatment method for pulpitis is root canal therapy, also known as “nerve pumping” in folk culture. Many patients may have questions, do teeth lose nutrition and become brittle after the extraction of dental nerves? The answer is that it will lose 20% of its strength.
However, if the nerve is not removed, the pain will not be relieved, and the inflamed and necrotic dental nerve is a lesion in the root canal, which can progress pulpitis to periapical periodontitis and cause damage to the periapical bone. So, in principle, if the dental nerve can be preserved, make every effort to preserve it; If the dental nerve has lost its preservation value, then keep our teeth.
After root canal treatment, a “protective cover” – an all ceramic crown – can be worn on the affected tooth. Its main material is zirconia, which has a hardness similar to the hard tissue of the tooth and can effectively protect the tooth. (Deputy Chief Physician Zhou Zhikun)