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Start with the symptom

Tooth pain

Pain is information, and different kinds of it point in different directions. A twinge from cold that fades is not the same problem as an ache that wakes you at 3am. This page sorts the common patterns, says which ones should not wait, and shows what each is usually treated with.

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How urgent is it?

What needs a call today, and what can wait

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These do not improve on their own, and waiting tends to make the treatment larger.

  • Swelling in the face, jaw, or under the eye, especially with a fever or a bad taste. Swelling means an infection has moved out of the tooth into the tissue around it, and it does not resolve on its own.
  • Pain severe enough to stop you sleeping or eating, or that over-the-counter painkillers no longer touch.
  • Pain after recent dental work that is getting worse rather than settling day by day.

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Not an emergency, but not something to sit on for months either.

  • A sharp jolt every time you bite down on one particular tooth — a common sign of a crack, and cracks tend to widen.
  • Sensitivity to hot or cold that lingers for more than a few seconds after the source is gone, rather than fading immediately.
  • A dull ache that comes and goes over days, or gums that are sore, swollen, or bleeding around one tooth.

Raise it at your next visit

Worth mentioning, worth planning, no need to rearrange your week.

  • A brief twinge from something cold that stops as soon as you swallow, with no swelling and no pain on biting. Worth raising at your next visit rather than treating as an emergency — recession, a worn spot, or a small area of decay are the usual explanations, and an exam distinguishes them.

If anything in the “Call today” list describes what is happening, phone the nearest office and say what you are experiencing — the front desk will tell you how soon you can be seen.

Beachside — (714) 842-6151Marina — (310) 578-5000Rio Hondo — (562) 928-5559

If swelling is affecting your breathing or swallowing, or bleeding will not stop — go to the emergency room or call 911. That is past what a dental office can handle.

What it usually means

The common explanations

The same tooth can hurt for several different reasons, and the pattern of the pain is the clue a dentist works from. None of the below is a diagnosis; they are the possibilities an exam and an X-ray narrow down.

Decay reaching the nerve

Early decay is often silent. Once it gets near the pulp, the classic pattern is lingering sensitivity to hot and cold and pain that arrives without a trigger, sometimes worse lying down.

A cracked tooth

A crack typically hurts on release — the jolt comes as you let go of a bite, not as you press down. Cracks are notoriously hard to see on an X-ray, which is why they are often found by testing rather than imaging.

An abscess

When infection collects at the root tip or in the gum, the pain is often constant and throbbing, and the tooth can feel raised or tender to touch. Swelling and fever mean it has spread beyond the tooth.

Gum problems

Pain that is more about the gum than the tooth — tender, puffy, bleeding when brushed, sometimes with a bad taste — points at the tissue and bone around the tooth rather than inside it.

Grinding and clenching

Teeth that ache in the morning, jaw muscles that feel tired, several teeth sensitive at once with nothing obvious to see: a common pattern where the load on the teeth, not damage inside one of them, is the problem.

A lost filling or crown

Exposed dentine is sensitive immediately. It is uncomfortable rather than dangerous, but the tooth underneath is unprotected while it stays that way.

Something that is not the tooth

Sinus pressure can make upper back teeth ache in unison, and jaw-joint problems can refer pain into teeth that turn out to be healthy. Ruling these in or out is part of the exam.

The realistic routes

How it is usually treated

What treatment follows depends entirely on what the exam finds. These are the routes that address the causes above, at the offices that provide them.

  • Emergency Dentist

    The right first call when the pain is severe, there is swelling, or something has broken. The visit is about getting you comfortable and finding the cause — definitive treatment often follows separately.

    Provided at Beachside, Marina and Rio Hondo.

  • Root Canal Therapy

    For pain coming from inside the tooth, where the pulp is inflamed or infected. It removes the source of the pain and keeps the tooth, which is usually preferable to losing it.

    Provided at Beachside, Marina and Rio Hondo.

  • Fillings

    Where decay has not reached the nerve. The smallest, quickest repair, and the one available for the shortest window — which is the argument for not waiting on early sensitivity.

    Provided at Beachside and Rio Hondo.

  • Dental Crowns

    When too much tooth structure is missing or cracked for a filling to hold. A crown wraps the tooth rather than plugging it, which is what stops a crack spreading.

    Provided at Beachside, Marina and Rio Hondo.

  • Gum Disease Treatment

    When the discomfort is in the tissue around the tooth rather than inside it. Treatment is aimed at the infection under the gum, not at the tooth surface.

    Provided at Beachside, Marina and Rio Hondo.

  • Sedation Dentistry

    Not a treatment for pain, but for the reason some people have been putting off the appointment. Worth raising when fear is the thing keeping a painful tooth untreated.

    Provided at all four offices.

What it costs

What actually moves the number

Toothache is the situation where cost is hardest to predict in advance, because the visit that finds the cause and the treatment that fixes it are usually two different things. These are the factors involved.

The visit that diagnoses it
An urgent exam plus the X-rays needed to see the root is its own item, separate from whatever treatment follows. It is also the only way to know which treatment that is.
Which tooth
Back teeth have more roots and more canals than front teeth, so treating them takes longer. Position, not preference, drives that part of the number.
How far it has gone
The same tooth can need a filling, a crown, a root canal and a crown, or an extraction and a replacement, depending on how much sound structure is left. Every step further along costs more than the one before it.
What it needs afterwards
A tooth treated from the inside usually needs a crown to survive normal chewing. Counting the root canal without the crown is the most common way a quote looks smaller than the real total.
Comfort options
Local anesthetic is standard and included. Sedation is a separate choice with a separate cost, and it is worth asking about before the appointment rather than at the chair.

Where to go

Offices that provide these treatments

Not every office provides every route above — each treatment says where it is available, and so does each office's own page. Every office answers its own phone.

Keep reading

Articles that go deeper

On this problem

Browse all patient resources — or read thefull article index.

Other problems

  • A broken or chipped tooth

    From a chipped edge to a tooth split below the gum — the first hours, the real urgency, and which repair fits which break.

  • Missing teeth

    One tooth, several teeth, or a full arch — how the gap changes over time and which replacements fit which situation.

See all symptoms

Before you act on this

This is education, not a diagnosis

This page describes patterns, not your tooth. Pain is a poor guide to how serious a problem is — a tooth whose nerve has died can stop hurting entirely while the infection carries on — so the absence of pain is not evidence that something has resolved. Only an exam can tell you what is happening.

Sources

  1. Tooth Pain — American Association of Endodontists
  2. Abscessed Teeth — American Association of Endodontists
  3. Cracked Teeth — American Association of Endodontists
  4. What is a Root Canal? — American Association of Endodontists
  5. Dental Emergencies — American Dental Association (MouthHealthy)
  6. Tooth abscess — MedlinePlus (NIH National Library of Medicine)
  7. Tooth Decay — NIH — National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
  8. Gum Disease Information — American Academy of Periodontology

Get it looked at, then decide.

An exam turns a symptom into options you can actually compare. Request an appointment, or call the office closest to you.

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