Last week I started to have a terrible toothache that ended with a root canal. Not fun, but worth it to get rid of the pain! During a sleepless, painful night, I broke out our Hot or Cold Headband and warmed it in the microwave – thinking a little heat usually helps any aching pain, so this should bring some relief. Uh – no! The heat made it worse so I went to the freezer to get one of our already chilled cold packs (I didn’t have a headband chilled). That did the trick to bring some relief, although nothing but antibiotics and a root canal really fixed the problem.
I decided to do some research about toothaches and tooth pain. Looks like as with most other pain, it depends on the causes and individual tooth. Some toothaches are definitely helped with heat. I know that toothache/TMJ pain usually responds very well to heat as we’ve had many many customers tell us our microwaved headband brought instant jaw pain relief. Sometimes, cold will really help a toothache, although other times cold can make it worse. So, the bottom line is – you just need to try heat and cold packs to see which one really helps. Seems like since my morning coffee was sending my toothache into orbit, I would have realized heat was not a good idea for me!
