Day 7 of this torturous ordeal. Visited the dentist again yesterday, and she took an X-ray this time. Unfortunately, the tooth is dead, and has to either come out or have a root canal and crown that would cost over $2000! So the tooth comes out on Thursday. She wouldn’t pull it on Monday because it was too inflamed and infected, so I am on a course of antibiotics to settle it down before the extraction.
Which brings me on to the title of today’s post of natural remedies. I have found two that worked at various stages of the pain.
On Sunday night after the I was nearly ready to get the pliers out of the tool box and extract it myself, Kim started searching the web for something more natural that would ease the pain. The painkillers were only working for a very limited time, and at about the 3 hour mark after taking them the pain came back stronger than ever.
She discovered a remedy where you cut a clove of garlic in half lengthways and press the cut side into crushed rock salt. You then place the garlic/salt mix on top of the affected tooth and gently press the juice out of the garlic for about 5-10 minutes. I was a bit skeptical at first, but after about 30 minutes the pain became less intense, and after about an hour it was just a dull throb, which I could handle. I applied this at about 2300 Sunday and it lasted until about 0700 Monday, at which time the pain came back stronger than ever. I tried the garlic/salt method again Monday morning, but it only worked for an hour or so and was then unbearable. So it was back on the painkillers for most of the day.
This morning, I took some of my readers advice and went one further. I was given a metal tea ball for Christmas, so I put about 10 cloves into the ball, and infused them in boiling water for about 5 minutes. A weak clove tea with a teaspoon of sugar, helped relieve the mouth pain associated with the infection. I then took out one of the cloves from the ball, which was now moist, and placed it on the tooth in front of the infected one and gently chewed it. In about 5 minutes my entire mouth went numb, like the feeling you get after a Novocain injection. The pain went back to a dull throb again, and I managed to keep this up all day, putting in a fresh moist clove from the tea ball about once every two hours. A potent remedy if there ever was one! In fact, I am chewing on one now.
I am very impressed with these two natural medicines, and it make me think that there are so many more out there to be found. I have so many herbs in the garden, them must be more uses for them than just culinary. It looks like I will be off to the library tomorrow after work. I might need something else to help out after the extraction on Thursday!
I’m glad you managed to find some natural relief from your tooth pain, Gavin.
I think you’ll be surprised at just how much you can use herbs and other botanicals for. The most commonly know are probably lavender for relaxation, chilli for topical pain relief, cranberry to cystitis, and rosemary infusion for headaches. A whole new world is about to open up for you 🙂
Hi Gav,
Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday. I wasn’t feeling too well myself and with the heat I was worried I was going to have two cooked dogs at home. Talk about global warming, I don’t remember having any of these 38C-42C days about 10 years ago! I hope you are coping today until your tooth gets extracted tomorrow. Keep sucking on those cloves. Thanks again for a fantastic Quiche and salad lunch on Saturday. What you’ve done to your place is truly inspirational. Jane and I got home and planted some snowpeas and some more basil in our Kitchen vege patch. Take care mate!
Oh that last comment was from Sim – I didn’t have an account – but I do now 🙂
the cloves remedy gav is old as the hills i can remember my mother doing it to me and it really eased the pain and i have done it as an adult and it still works.
Just wrote you a lovely long comment Gav then ‘poof’ it vanished – sorry. Not sure what happened.
Just wanted to say great post!
Glad to hear that cloves worked for you.
~Sadge
Poor you! It sounds awful. I hope you’re better soon.
Ouch! (((hugs))) We know how painful that can be as our daughter got a really horrible tooth abcess over Christmas! In the end we took her to our local hospital to get some anti-biotics but by then her pain was unbearable! If only we had known about the cloves, we did use clove oil though and cold flannels. Her tooth is now extracted and the ordeal is over as yours soon will be.
Interesting article. Thanks for the info. I also know that garlic helps to relief the pain.
I’ve tried using this when I was young.