Pulpitis: Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatment Every person dreams of healthy and beautiful teeth. However, few people can boast of an ideal smile. Dentists daily treat various diseases of the oral cavity. The most common tooth disease is caries and pulpitis. These two diseases are successfully treated at the initial stage. But for some reason, many people are so afraid of dentists that they go to them only when the toothache becomes unbearable, and the disease is too sharp.


Every person should visit the dentist once every six months. This will help to avoid various diseases and in time to carry out their prevention. Today the field of dentistry is very developed and the teeth do not hurt at all. In addition, good doctors will do their best to make you satisfied with the result. In this article, we will tell you about a disease such as pulpitis.

What is pulpitis?

To cause pulpitis, you need a very long time to not treat the tooth. In a person with healthy teeth, such a disease does not appear without a reason. Some believe that pulpitis is an inflammation of the dental nerve. However, in fact, with this disease, not only one nerve gets inflamed, but a whole neurovascular bundle called a pulp. The pulp feeds the whole tooth. Inside each tooth there is a pulp chamber, in which the pulp itself is directly located. The pulp is a soft tissue that consists of nerve fibers and blood vessels. If the tooth is healthy, the pulpitis does not make itself felt. But as soon as there is inflammation of the pulp, there is a very strong toothache, which is difficult to get rid of even with medication.

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As mentioned above, without cause pulpitis does not develop. There are many factors that can trigger this disease:

  • Deep caries or complications that appeared as a result of its elimination. If caries are not treated for a long time, then the carious cavity and the chamber in which the pulp is located are filled with pathogenic microorganisms that are formed as a result of caries. This leads to an inflammatory process.
  • Infection can get through the bloodstream into the pulp and cause inflammation.
  • In case of a tooth injury, pulpitis may occur.
  • If the enamel is damaged, due to erroneous actions of the dentist, as well as poor-quality seal material, pulpitis may develop.

The main symptoms of the disease

The main symptom of pulpitis is the appearance of severe toothache. The pain can be different: aching, harsh, paroxysmal, rasstrelivayuschey. It occurs in one tooth, but it may give the impression that the whole jaw or neighboring teeth whines. Sometimes pain in pulpitis gives in the ear, neck or temple. It increases when cold or hot, sweet or other food gets on the tooth.

At night, the pain is the strongest. As a rule, the above symptoms are typical for acute pulpitis. However, the disease can go into a chronic form, if not treated. The chronic stage is dangerous because it can lead to the removal of the tooth. Chronic pulpitis may occur asymptomatically or occasionally make itself felt aching pain.

To what complications can pulpitis lead?

If a person until the last hope that the pain will disappear on their own, then this can lead to serious consequences. Very often we postpone a visit to the dentist hoping for painkillers or folk methods of treatment. They can remove the symptoms, but they will not cure you of the disease.

If pulpitis is not treated, it can lead to periodontitis. From an inflamed pulp, the infection will gradually penetrate the boundaries of the tooth and provoke inflammatory processes in the tissues that surround the dental root. The danger of this disease lies in the fact that the bone tissue is destroyed, as a result of this, granuloma, cystogranuloma and pericorn cysts are formed. Such foci of inflammation are very difficult to extract with the help of therapeutic methods, so you have to remove the tooth completely.

It should be noted and the fact that the main focus of the infection can spread throughout the body through the bloodstream. This can lead to an exacerbation of chronic diseases of internal organs and to various inflammatory processes in the body.

How to provide first aid?

Toothache can take us by surprise anywhere, anytime. Therefore, it is not always possible to go to the dentist right away. But you can not endure the pain. That's why in such situations it is necessary to help yourself and to remove a toothache. There are several effective ways:

  • soak the cotton wool or cotton swab with tincture of valerian, a drug solution of hydrogen peroxide or dental drops and attach it to a sick tooth or carious cavity;
  • prepare a mouth rinse solution from the infusion of sage leaves or hydrogen peroxide( one teaspoon of substance per 100 ml of warm water);
  • take an anesthetic: tempalgin, nise, nurofen, ibuprofen and the like.

Such methods will help you get rid of a toothache for a couple of hours. Therefore, try to get to the dentist as soon as possible, so that he starts treatment.

Diagnosis of the disease

Once you are in the dental chair, you need to tell the doctor about the symptoms. Then the dentist will examine your mouth and check for sensitivity of teeth. After that, you will be referred to an X-ray to clarify the diagnosis and make a plan for further treatment. Treatment is individual, as it is appointed proceeding from the peculiarities of the structure of the roots and root canals of the tooth, as well as the type of pulpitis.

How is the disease treated?

First of all, the doctor anesthetizes the tooth so that the patient does not feel pain and does not interfere with the work. Also, the doctor must remove the inflammatory process in the pulp, restore the shape and physiological functions of the tooth. Doctors use two methods of treatment:

Conservative method of treatment

This method is also called biological. The purpose of this method is to maintain a fully or partially viable pulp. However, this is possible only if the inflammatory process is reversible. The biological method can be used for tooth injuries, with careless opening of the pulp during the treatment of deep caries. The dissected pulp is very carefully treated with an antiseptic, then a pad of calcium hydroxide or tricalcium phosphate is applied. Only after this the doctor will fill the tooth.

In most cases, such treatment is effective, and the inflammation passes. But the doctor will have to visit regularly - at least once a year. The doctor will send you to X-rays to monitor the pulp. Another condition for using this method - from the moment of the appearance of toothache should not take more than two days.

Surgical method

This method is used when pulpitis is started. The pulp is completely removed and only after that the doctor proceeds to fill the canals, the cavity of the tooth and restore its appearance. This method consists of two stages. The patient is anesthetized, the remains of food are removed from the tooth cavity and the dental cavity is opened. After that, the pulp is removed. With the help of special tools, root canals are processed. Sometimes a doctor acts in a different way. First, he kills the nerves with the help of arsenic drugs. This drug is applied for several days. After this, the patient comes to remove the pulp. The empty root canals are sealed, so that they do not multiply germs.