How to Reduce Tooth Pain

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Do you have tooth pain?

Let’s talk about how to relieve tooth pain, be it from dental work or from dental decay. I am going to share some tips that can help your tooth pain while improving your health at the same time.

After I had my amalgam fillings replaced with BPA and Bis-GMA free composites (Diamond Lite brand, in case you are wondering), I experienced pain in several teeth for months afterward. Can you imagine spending $2000 to get toxic mercury out of your mouth, only to experience such pain afterward, that every single time you ate something, your teeth hurt?? I was afraid I was doomed to pain in my teeth forever, and to me that was so much worse than have toxic mercury leaking into my body on a daily basis. I wondered what horrible mistake I had done to myself.

Luckily, the pain eventually went away. I do believe there are certain things I did which may have helped, and I will share them here with you.

Also, after having my third baby, I struggled to get enough nutrition into my body. I was nursing my new baby and my toddler, and that is a lot of nutrients going out of my body every day! I was barely surviving motherhood on top of that, so eating a highly nutrient-dense diet was not something I was accomplishing very well. In fact, I started slipping toward the opposite, with a growing addiction to chocolate, which, unfortunately, has a lot of sugar in it (Sugar robs the body of nutrients.)

At almost a year postpartum, a niggly feeling in one of my teeth that I had been ignoring turned into pain. That was a wake-up call for sure. I stopped sugar immediately. I was sure I had a cavity in my molar. I’ve never had pain from a cavity before, but that’s probably because back when I used to get cavities, I had always gone to the dentist regularly and got them filled before it became painful. This tooth pain kind of scared me, but I didn’t want to run off to the dentist and fight having yet another filling put into my mouth. So I cleaned up my diet and started taking certain supplements.

***NOTE*** I hope these tips help you, but I cannot promise any results.

What Food Did I Eat?

It’s important to acknowledge that the health of all our bones, including our teeth, comes from our diet. Our body is constantly rebuilding our teeth and other bones. We need plenty of vitamins and minerals to build up our teeth and enamel. Calcium is the biggest player, magnesium and phosphorus are also important, but highly overlooked is the importance of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K2. These vitamins are responsible for getting those minerals into our bones.

• Raw Grassfed Milk. I am a raw milk drinker, so I continued drinking plenty of raw milk. Raw milk’s calcium is more bioavailable than pasteurized milk. It is also a good source of vitamins A and K2, assuming the cows feed on pasture.
• Limit Phytic Acid. Phytic acid is present in plant foods, particularly grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes. The problem with too much phytic acid is that it binds to minerals, making them unavailable for the body to use. Whenever I ate these foods, I tried to eat them after they had been sprouted or fermented, which reduces the phytic acid.
• Limit Acid-forming Foods. Certain foods are considered acid-forming, which means if it weren’t for our body’s ability to alkalize itself by pulling minerals out of the bones, we’d become acidic ourselves, which would be very bad. The unfortunate side-effect of this self-protective mechanism is that our bones become weaker.
• Limit Inflammatory Foods. I felt, with the composite fillings, the pain was coming from inflammation. I chose to limit inflammatory foods such as sugar and refined grains, and as always I avoided industrial oils.
• Wise Traditions Diet. Overall, I followed the Wise Traditions diet, as outlined in the Nourishing Traditions Cookbook. See my Traditional Foods page for more information.
• Cure Tooth Decay Special Foods. I also took into consideration the particular foods emphasized in the book Cure Tooth Decay, such as eating organ meat (heart, liver), raw milk and plenty of butter from grassfed cows.

What Supplements Did I Take?

I get a little excited over supplements sometimes. They are so easy to take, much easier than a diet overhaul. Of course, everything works much better if you correct your diet, but when you can’t do the diet perfectly, supplements can really help.

• Cod Liver Oil. My favorite supplement is COD LIVER OIL. It’s actually a food, but is used as a way to supplement natural vitamins A and D which are crucial for bone health.  You want to be sure to buy cod liver oil that has plenty of naturally occurring vitamin A in it. Some good brands are Rosita, NutraPro and Green Pasture. Green Pasture may not have enough vitamin D in it to balance the vitamin A, so I would actually recommend going with Rosita or NutraPro.
• High Vitamin Butter Oil. HVBO contains vitamin K2, which works in conjunction with vitamins A and D to get minerals into your bones. Considered most effective when taken with cod liver oil.
• Vitamin K2 supplement. For those times I wasn’t good about taking the HVBO, I took a K2 supplement. Live Wise and Thorne Research are both great options.
• Dessicated liver pills. If you aren’t good about eating organ meats, you can swallow them in a pill. Dessicated liver is mostly for the vitamin A, but overall, liver is an excellent source of energy-boosting vitamins and minerals, so wonderful to take anyway. Keep in mind that natural cod liver oil and dessicated liver both have high levels of vitamin A.
• Dr Christopher’s Tissue and Bone capsules. Just two a day when I had the cavity pain, and I could tell that this supplement helped a LOT! There is also a powder form for using directly on the teeth.
• Calcium Orotate. I bought this but didn’t actually use it (except in a homemade toothpaste) because I drink so much raw milk that I get plenty of calcium there. But this was suggested to me as being a very bioavailable calcium supplement.
• Bioplasma. This is a combination of 12 homeopathic cell salts. My understanding on these is that they work by helping your body to utitlize different minerals. There aren’t actually minerals in it, it just helps your body work better at using minerals. I would take just two a day, under my tongue.
• Vitamin D. My body doesn’t make vitamin D well, so I take extra.

If I were only going to take three of these supplements, I would chose cod liver oil, Dr Christopher’s Tissue and Bone, and Bioplasma.

What Else?

• Oil Pulling. I’m not very good about it, but it seemed to help a bit when I did do it. Some people swear by it.
• Clay. I used bentonite clay as a paste and packed it on my cavity tooth. I think this would have really helped with the composite filling pain, too.
• Tooth Powder. As mentioned above, one could use a healing tooth powder, such as Dr Christopher’s.
• Avoid glycerin tooth products. Glycerin coats the teeth and may reduce remineralization. I use Earthpaste, and have just found Uncle Harry’s Miracle Mouthwash that is glycerin-free. Uncle Harry has Remineralization Kit, too!
• Xylitol gum. Apparently there is some controversy over whether xylitol improves dental health, but I figured chewing some xylitol gum couldn’t hurt.

Some of these products I used with the composite pain only, some with the cavity pain only, and some I used for both. I think all could help in either case. Think in terms of lowering inflammation in the body and increasing nutrition to the bones.

I highly recommend the book Cure Tooth Decay, by Ramiel Nagel. There is so much more information in it! And Nourishing Traditions is the book that changed my life by changing my health for the better. Both can help you have healthier, happier teeth.

***NOTE*** Several of the products suggested in this article contain peppermint oil and other essential oils that can prevent homeopathic remedies from working. If you are using any homeopathy such as Bioplasma, then either avoid these products or choose the peppermint-free options if available, or be sure to use them at least an hour away from taking your homeopathic. If you are on a constitutional homeopathic (prescribed by a homeopath), be aware that these products can antidote your remedy.