Does garlic help a toothache or is it more a myth than the truth?

The bactericidal properties of garlic are widely known - partly because it has gained popularity in the treatment and prevention of various diseases, especially in traditional medicine. Folk "healers" found the use of garlic and toothache, and some even consider garlic from pain in the tooth to be more effective than special tablets painkillers.

What is most interesting is that it is recommended to use garlic to reduce pain in the tooth almost as you please: this is putting a piece of garlic in the carious cavity, and compresses on a bad tooth, as well as taking alcohol tincture inside and rinsing it with the mouth, and even putting a tooth on it. wrist.

Is using garlic miraculously able to relieve a suffering person from toothache? Let's understand ...

 

The possibilities of garlic in combating tooth pain

If you try to understand the chemical composition of a simple clove of garlic and look for substances that are able to anesthetize among the substances in it, then we will not find any analgesics, even if weak ones. Therefore, you should not expect that immediately upon application to the diseased tooth, garlic will have about the same effect as analgesic pharmaceuticals.

But the antiseptic properties of garlic are really pronounced, and are caused by the substance allicin, exhibiting a bactericidal and fungicidal action.

It is interesting

Allicin is not present in garlic in its free form, but is formed only by mechanical destruction of clove cells, when the contents of damaged vacuoles and the cytoplasm are mixed together and enter into chemical interaction.

Thus, the “anesthetic” properties of garlic are very, very limited, and can manifest themselves only in the sense that its bactericidal properties will reduce the number of pathogenic microorganisms that cause, for example, gum inflammation.

It should be borne in mind that allicin is a very aggressive compound, as a result of which garlic can, for example,cause burns of the oral mucosa with immediate prolonged contact, as well as lead to additional irritation of the pulp (dental “nerve”) in the presence of a deep carious cavity in the tooth.

Examples:

1. Suppose there is a deep carious cavity in the tooth, almost reaching the pulp chamber (here the neurovascular bundle is located, which is colloquially referred to as simply the dental nerve). If the pulp is still alive (that is, it has not undergone death and necrotic decay), then if chemical stimuli, for example, acidic, spicy, salty foods, get into such a carious cavity, there is often severe pain. So if you try to follow the advice of the popular “healers” and tamp down a piece of garlic into the “hollow”, then the unforgettable feelings will be immediately provided. Immediate washing with water will help.
2. There are situations when pain arises due to inflammation of the gum tissue - food remains in the so-called gingival pocket, and here the process of their decay begins. In an effort to destroy the bacteria in the outbreak of inflammation, some people also try to put a piece of garlic to the sore spot, and at the same time they painstakingly suffer terrible pain and burning, believing that this is a natural cost of the healing process.Well, the damage from a burn can be no less than from inflammation, and bacteria can be destroyed in much more rational and safe ways.

Thus, toothache and garlic are almost incompatible concepts.

In all situations in which folk recipes recommend using garlic as an antiseptic, simple warm salt water can help: food debris, pus, and pathogenic bacteria can be washed by simply rinsing the mouth without trying to burn your gums with garlic “for better reliability”.

On a note

Putting garlic in a deep carious cavity can also lead to a burn of the pulp and its subsequent death, however, it will have to endure a very strong pain. The next day, the tooth can even almost stop hurting, since the neurovascular bundle will already be dead. However, you shouldn’t be too happy about it and assume that now you can not hurry to the dentist: dead tissue will decompose right inside the tooth, and the pus, not finding a way out, can give many more unpleasant surprises if you don’t go to a doctor in time.

Feedback

“Once in my youth, when I didn’t take care of my teeth and didn’t particularly hurry to the dentist for toothache, I often used garlic. Sometimes she made tincture on vodka, sometimes she just chewed. Honestly, it seemed to me that garlic helps to relieve a toothache, it is always so different, it will be more and more painful, and it will let go. So far it hurts, you use garlic, lets it go a little. Then again. But there was never one such tooth cured with garlic; everything always ended with a doctor. Now I understand that the less you go to the doctor and indulge in painkillers, no matter garlic or analginum, the healthier you will be. ”

Alexandra, Tyumen

 

Tincture of garlic toothache

A few words about the use of tincture of garlic to relieve toothache (also a popular popular technique).

Preparing such a tincture is quite simple: 100 grams of crushed garlic are poured with half a liter of vodka, the vessel is closed and placed for two weeks in a dark, cool place. After the expiration of the infusion, the entire mixture is filtered through gauze, and the filtered liquid, or rinse your mouth with a toothache, or (the second common method) is taken orally.

Well, with regard to ingestion, everything is clear - do not feed some comrades with bread, give something alcohol to ingest. Of course, the harm from such treatment will be greater than the benefits (from the very regular intake of ethyl alcohol, not to mention the constant irritation of the gastric mucosa with garlic).

However, the second use of garlic tincture in some cases may well be applied in practice with a neat performance: garlic phytoncides, which turn into tincture, get into areas of gum inflammation and destroy pathogenic bacteria, thereby inhibiting the inflammatory process and reducing the pain to a little. Ethanol also has a certain antiseptic effect, which, moreover, has a vasodilating effect.

More or less beneficial effect will be achieved in people suffering from gum disease. However, water with a decoction of chamomile, sage, and infusion of oak bark can be used with about the same effect for toothache.

But with toothaches caused by caries, pulpitis, or periodontitis, the effect of garlic tincture will be practically zero.

Feedback

“I read somewhere that you can make a tincture of garlic so that the pain in the tooth can be removed, but they don’t get it at the very hand. This process is too long: the tooth got sick, you put the tincture for two weeks, during these two weeks the pain became so severe that you had to go to the doctor, and before the next bad tooth this tincture is either poured or drunk. I used something similar to my grandmother in the village once. Well, a bit drunk, feel better, but caries does not disappear anywhere. The next day, my tooth ached anyway, and with it also my head ... ”

Sergey, Kaluga

 

Garlic wrist compress

At first, it may seem that putting garlic on the wrist with a toothache is something completely devoid of meaning, a kind of "babkin" method of conspiracy and prayer levels. It is also called Siberian, and it looks like this: a garlic clove is pressed until a slurry is obtained (sometimes it is simply cut off half), which is then applied to the inside of the wrist, where the pulse is felt, and carefully pressed with a tight bandage. And if the tooth hurts on the right, it is recommended to apply a bandage on the left hand, and vice versa.

Apologists of this method of relieving toothache appeal to the connection of various points on the surface of the body with nerve ganglia,and consider that by treating such a point on the wrist with garlic, you can stop the flow of pain impulses to the brain. This rationale does not have any evidence base, and use this technique today except in the villages, for lack of more effective painkillers.

Meanwhile, less odious comrades formulated a different principle of garlic when it was applied to the wrist: the strong burning of the skin on the arm distracts a person from a sick tooth, as a result of which toothache no longer seems so unbearable. Well, the approach is ambiguous, and here it’s up to the person himself to decide what is best for him: either only one tooth hurts, or the tooth and wrist at the same time hurt ...

Feedback

“Once it was such that the tooth suddenly ached, and it was Saturday outside the district center, fifty kilometers away. That is, I will go to the doctor only in two days for dinner. I went to a local grandmother-herbalist so that she could help at least something. She tied a clove of garlic on her wrist and so pinned him up that she began to press. She said that if I feel a strong burning sensation, then everything is fine, the process is underway.I was also surprised that the tooth ached on the left, and she tied the garlic on the right. My hand burned mercilessly, but I put up with all my strength, I sweated a lot. Then I still could not stand it, I removed the bandage, the skin under it was red, like a cancer. The tooth did not pass, but so far my hand was burning, I didn’t notice it that way ... ”

Olga, Khabarovsk

 

The safety of garlic, or why you first need to call a doctor

First of all, it should be remembered that the use of garlic to relieve toothache in no way can replace a visit to the dentist. It is so “established” that if a tooth gets sick and, moreover, it hurts regularly, then it will not heal itself, and it will only get worse without dental care.

As for garlic, the brief conclusions are:

• Putting it to the tooth does not reduce toothache - on the contrary, pain in most cases will only increase, especially in the case of a deep carious cavity;
• Attempts to frantically chew garlic and apply it to the gums are fraught with serious and very unpleasant burns;
• Acceptance of garlic tincture on vodka inside is not more effective than simply “drinking”, and rinsing such a tincture of the oral cavity is not more effective than rinsing with a warm decoction of chamomile or sage;
• Putting a garlic clove on the wrist will at best distract from toothache by a strong burning sensation in the wrist area, and otherwise it is completely meaningless.

With severe toothaches, regular attempts at self-treatment, be it garlic or pain pills, can lead to severe complications, some of which are even life-threatening. Therefore, the first thing to do with pain in the tooth - make an appointment with a doctor. And garlic ... put it better in the soup, so it will bring much more benefit.

(If you, too, had occasion to use garlic for toothache, be sure to leave your review at the bottom of this page!)

 

Useful video on how to quickly relieve toothache at home without pills

 

How to act when you have a toothache: the advice of a dentist-therapist