Five Ways to Deal With a Middle-of-the-Night Toothache Episode

• First, try flossing between the aching tooth and its neighbors; sometimes impacted food can set up the pain.
• If impaction is not the problem and you can see no obvious cavity, apply an ice bag or cold compress against the jaw on the affected side.
• If cold doesn't help. try heat, which sometimes does. Apply a hot-water bottle or warm compress.
• If you have a cavity, clean it out gently, using sterile cotton on the end of a toothpick; then saturate another bit of cotton with oil of cloves and pack it gently into the cavity with a toothpick.
• Still another alternative: Apply ice to the web of skin between the thumb and index finger on the same side of the body as the toothache. How this works is unknown, but it often does, respected Canadian investigators at McGill University, Montreal, report. Interestingly, the web site is where the Chinese insert Acupuncture needles to relieve tooth pain.