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!