Toothache is probably the most common and major clinical symptom, and most patients come to the dentist because of unbearable toothache. So why do our teeth hurt? What can we do to treat the pain? Let’s discuss this question. Most patients’ toothache is caused by tooth decay, the development of tooth decay is generally divided into the following stages: shallow caries: only the tooth surface enamel is damaged, the tooth basically does not feel or has slight soreness. At this time, if you can detect and treat the caries in time, the treatment effect will be very ideal, and can stop the caries from developing in time. Therefore, it is very necessary to have an oral examination once a year for prevention and treatment. Middle and deep caries: The damage of teeth has been carried out to dentin, and teeth start to have sore feeling or feel sore and soft when biting, and have transient pain. It is sensitive to hot, cold, sour and sweet stimulation, and even cause transient pain. At this time, timely consultation can also try to preserve the vitality of the tooth and restore the function and appearance of the tooth as much as possible. Pulpitis: The tooth damage has penetrated through the hard tooth tissue and reached the nutritive, nerve tissue – the pulp – and usually causes severe spontaneous pain, sometimes radiating to the entire cheek and causing headaches. However, there are some patients who do not feel pain throughout the entire procedure. At this point, the patient should immediately visit the dentist, and the correct root canal treatment can immediately relieve the pain and save the affected tooth. If you take delaying measures at this time, such as taking some anti-inflammatory drugs or painkillers, you will miss the treatment time, which will eventually lead to the extraction of the affected tooth and its loss. Indirectly affect the health of neighboring teeth and the whole oral cavity and chewing system. Apical infection, apical abscess: dull pain, swelling, loosening of the tooth, and painful biting. Bacteria have entered the periapical tissue through the pulp cavity, leading to resorption of the alveolar bone, loosening of the affected tooth, and eventual loss of the tooth. It can even lead to apical cyst, interstitial infection, osteomyelitis, jaw bone necrosis and other serious consequences! At this time, it is more important to treat the tooth as early as possible to minimize the damage to the jaw bone! So why is tooth pain so unpleasant? This is closely related to the structure of the tooth. Because the outer layer of the tooth is hard dental tissue, and the inflamed pulp tissue oozes a lot of inflammatory fluid, causing a sudden increase in pressure in the pulp chamber. The pulp is under high pressure and causes severe pain! The high pressure further accelerates the necrosis of the pulp tissue, creating a vicious circle. Moreover, the pulp nerve is connected to the nerve center by several major nerves and lacks precise pain localization. Therefore, acute attacks of pulpitis often cause severe pain on the entire cheek and face, and even cause migraines. However, some patients say that they have not felt much pain yet, but the tooth has been decayed most of the time, how is this? This is because the development of tooth decay is very fast, the tooth pulp has not yet occurred acute inflammation, the tooth body has been decayed through to the pulp cavity, the inflammatory exudate of the tooth pulp can be drained out through the cavity, so the pain is not very intense, generally the patient thinks that bear it will pass. However, the damage of the tooth will not stop because of this, the bacteria will continue to destroy the periapical tissue through the pulp cavity, causing inflammation, abscess, cyst, etc. to occur in the periapical area. In this case, the pus cannot be removed in time, and the cheek and face become swollen. The spread of pus and bacteria to the surrounding area can cause serious complications such as interstitial infection and osteomyelitis! Therefore, the dentist is still tired of reminding you that prevention is better than cure! Insist on an annual oral examination.