Tooth pain is doing better for couple of days. Still looking forward to seeing student dentist but I can cope right now.

I realized that I had unintentionally provoked the pain. When I saw the licensed dentist when I had asked for a student dentist a year ago the dentist was so nice. He evaluated me and told me to ask my student about my gun disease and treatment and gave me lots of advice and because they had scheduled me in error with a licensed dentist he didn't charge me a penny. He said well while I am here I will do a little bit of cleaning (with no insurance I was way overdue) and chipped away a bit at the plaque & tartar & he gave me some free Sensodyne toothpaste & said to rinse with a salt solution for a few days & use the toothpaste because my teeth would likely hurt because the plaque & tartar that builds up acts like an insulation to pain and when it is removed it can be painful to the tooth for awhile. I didn't have much problem then but a week or so ago I was feeling on my molar with my finger and there was a bump on the side & I am like what is with my tooth? Is this a cavity gone awry or what and then I realized that it was simply tartar that had built up on the side of the tooth. I started scratching it with my fingernail & was able to break it apart & then started scratching off most of the build up. If I had dental tools & a good mirror I would do my own cleanings but alas I don't so I scraped the side of the tooth pretty good & removed quite a bit of tartar. That is good for the tooth but I had forgotten what the dentist had said about that making the tooth sensitive so neglected the saline & sensodyne. It didn't hurt right then. It was a couple of days later though when the pain got wicked. Clearly it was the tooth sensitivity causing the pain rather than a cavity gone bad because if it had been a deep nerve pain simply numbing the gum would not have blocked the pain. The topical benzocaine was a good idea. And numbing the gum was a good idea to stop the crazy bad pain but short term solution. But now I realize what happened & I am doing saline & sensodyne again with a little topical benzocaine on the gum when it hurts. I am encouraged because at the time I was thinking my tooth is in bad shape & surely will need a root canal. But likely not. It was a different molar the dentist mentioned had a cavity & might possibly need a root canal way back then so likely I might just need a good cleaning on the tooth that was hurting so bad this week and some treatment for gum disease. I am inconsistent with flossing (bad Yoda) but I love Listerine. It burns like heck but I always think how many bacteria are dying in the alcohol while I swish so don't mind that it burns. I usually use Listerine twice a day. Good stuff.

So anyway I just wanted to post something positive now that I have figured out what happened & how to manage it. So glad that dentist informed me. I know only basic tooth structure from being a paramedic/nurse and learned what to do with a tooth that has been knocked out by trauma that might be able to be reinplanted (put the tooth in milk & transport to ED) but I don't know much else. I am wondering what the treatment for gum disease is. I know I should be better flossing to help on that end but I am looking forward to talking to my dental student about gum disease & learning more.

Fortunately I have a good tolerance to pain which helps. I did natural childbirth & was thinking, this is it? I thought it would be intolerable but it wasn't so bad. Nausea though shuts me down. Low low tolerance for nausea. I would rather do natural childbirth ten times again rather than go through the first trimester nausea again.

I don't know what influences it but working in open heart recovery I would see a lot of variability in folks' tolerance to pain. They would be scared of the chest hurting after the surgery but the chest has fewer nerves so it was the legs that hurt more from where they harvested the veins. And chest tube removal but it is over quickly. We did some studies to using pain meds to decrease pain during CT removal & basically they didn't help much. Something odd that I noticed in my fifteen years there was that men complained more of pain than women. I always wondered why. Is their tolerance different or some chemical hormone effect or physiology or what? I would love to read some good research about that.