Painkillers do not help
Many people who suffer from toothache quickly turn to painkillers. The topic of resistance is known to many, especially in connection with antibiotics. However, intolerances to painkillers occur again and again.
It is quite conceivable that with excessive consumption of a medicine kind a resistance or an incompatibility up to the allergy can develop. It is known that the body develops habituation effects after longer periods of use and that the intensity of painkillers decreases until they are completely ineffective. Doctors speak of a so-called pain memory.
The brain internalizes pain and its intensity and evaluates this experience. Taking medication over a longer period of time can change the activity of the nerve cells and thus alter complete nerve cords and pathways to the extent that medication has less or no effect. However, the fact that a painkiller is no longer effective does not have to last forever.
After a longer break in taking the medication, it is quite possible that it will work again completely as the habituation effect subsides. Another common example where painkillers are almost completely ineffective is in the case of an empty alveolus.When a tooth is extracted, a blood clot forms in the empty tooth socket, the alveolus. These blood cells in the clot are gradually transformed into other tissue cells and the wound closes.
If this clot does not form, for example due to excessive washing around the mouth or early smoking, the alveolus is bloodless and the bone underneath the gums is exposed to any infection. If it becomes infected, severe pain can occur and painkillers usually do not help because healing is manifested locally on the bone in the alveolus. Most painkillers do not penetrate the bone well and therefore do not reach the source of pain.
Rare, but also conceivable, are cases in which patients complain about short intervals with insanely intense pain in the area of the teeth, cheek and the entire face. Doctors speak of trigeminal neuralgia, in which the fifth cranial nerve, the trigeminal nerve, constantly and irregularly sends out pain sensations. Since these attacks of pain are very brief, but all the more intense, the usual pain medication cannot be effective at all, since the time until the effect occurs exceeds the actual pain period. If trigeminal neuralgia is diagnosed, a visit to a pain specialist is unavoidable.
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