Sleep with your head elevated – Prop up a few pillows to prevent your blood flow from rushing to your head, making your tooth pain worse. Use a cold compress – A cold compress (or towel-wrapped ice pack) can reduce inflammation and numb the area.
Symptoms of a dental abscess
an intense, throbbing pain in the affected tooth or gum that may come on suddenly and gets gradually worse. pain that spreads to your ear, jaw and neck on the same side as the affected tooth or gum. pain that's worse when lying down, which may disturb your sleep.
Reason #1: More Blood Flow
Laying down causes more blood rush to our heads, putting extra pressure on sensitive areas, such as our mouths. We don't feel that throbbing sensation as much during the day because we're mostly standing or sitting.
Cold Compress
Some conditions can lead to swelling in your cheek and jaw area, along with the gums. Many times that points to an abscess, which is a pocket of puss that has formed in the roots of your tooth. Putting a nice cold rag or an ice pack on the swollen area can help reduce the swelling and numb the pain.
Sleep with your head elevated – Prop up a few pillows to prevent your blood flow from rushing to your head, making your tooth pain worse. Use a cold compress – A cold compress (or towel-wrapped ice pack) can reduce inflammation and numb the area.
Acute oral infections take between three and seven days to resolve, but you may take antibiotics for longer. You may get a deep cleaning to open the tooth and remove the infected contents.
Emergency Warning Signs: When should I see a doctor? Emergency medical care could be in order if the abscess is accompanied by a fever higher than 101°F or if the abscess measures more than half an inch. If red streaks radiate from a possible infection site, seek medical attention right away.
Take a cold compress to the infected area for 15 minutes at a time. Repeat as needed. This remedy will help numb the area and decrease inflammation.
Treating an abscess
A small skin abscess may drain naturally, or simply shrink, dry up and disappear without any treatment. However, larger abscesses may need to be treated with antibiotics to clear the infection, and the pus may need to be drained.
If you can't get in to see your dentist right away, you can take an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drug, such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) to help with the pain. Rinsing your mouth with warm salt water may also help. You can purchase over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medication online.
The body considers pus garbage and will try to get rid of it. But when pus collects in an abscess, it may not be able to drain out. As pus builds up, it can press against the skin and surrounding inflamed tissue, causing pain.
Gently clean the skin with a sterilizing solution. Apply ice to the abscess. Anesthetize the skin with lidocaine and epinephrine. The numb area will blanch within the next two minutes.
Skin abscesses
Applying heat in the form of a warm compress, such as a warm flannel, may help reduce any swelling and speed up healing.
It may be tempting to use a warm compress or a heating pad to ease your pain, but this is a very bad idea. The body's response to an infection is inflammation and swelling. If you add to the heat by adding a warm compress to your face, you can increase the swelling and pain. Instead, use cold packs.
Dental Treatment in the Emergency Room
In the case of bacterial infections, they can provide antibiotics and will arrange for transfer to the hospital if necessary. They can also treat broken, dislodged, or fractured teeth and help to control severe pain.
An abscess can form as your body's defenses try to kill these germs with your inflammatory response (white blood cells = pus). Obstruction in a sweat or oil (sebaceous) gland, or a hair follicle or a pre-existing cyst can also trigger an abscess.
NSAIDs such as ibuprofen, naproxen, or aspirin provide the most effective pain relief for a tooth abscess. They will both relieve the pain and reduce the swelling caused by the infection. Anesthetics are popularly used, but products with benzocaine should be avoided.
If you are suffering from an abscess and cannot make it to your doctor within three days, you should consider going to an urgent care clinic or hospital emergency room. Abscesses need immediate medical attention.
The patient should seek emergency help if the infection has become so painful and cannot be managed with over-the-counter medication. If the patient has developed a fever, has chills, is vomiting, or exhibiting other symptoms of having a dental abscess.
Superficial abscesses are commonly seen in the emergency department. In most cases, they can be adequately treated by the emergency physician without hospital admission. Treatment consists of surgical drainage with the addition of antibiotics in selected cases.
Abscesses tend to get worse as time goes on. Symptoms include tenderness or pain and the site of the abscess being warm to the touch.
In some cases, the area around the tooth hurts, but not always. If it does, it's usually a sharp, throbbing pain, especially when you put pressure on your tooth.
Drainage relieves most of the pain of an abscess, but postoperative analgesics may be required.