Homeopathy Papers

Toothache – I

Written by Elaine Lewis

Attacked by dentistry.

In October of 2003, I innocently went to the dentist.  Who would have thought that preventive dentistry could be so dangerous?

A few days later, the gum on the outside of my upper right 2nd molar was swollen, painful, the molar ached, the tooth felt elongated, and I couldn’t bite down.  It was a Saturday night, so even if I had the inclination to see the dentist about this, the office would have been closed.  What to do?  This was an emergency!  I know that when the tooth starts to feel longer than the other teeth?  It’s not a good sign!  I had obviously been the victim of a “hospital infection”—though this wasn’t a hospital, per se, but close enough!

By all rights, I needed an antibiotic, that’s the standard treatment for this, but, I’ve had enough experience with antibiotics to know that they either don’t work, don’t last, or make you sick.  So, that didn’t seem like an option to me.  Luckily, there’s homeopathy which stimulates the healing forces in your own body!

I opened my homeopathic Repertory—our book of symptoms— to the “Teeth” chapter and went through the whole thing.  I saw an interesting rubric, Teeth: pain, toothache, pressure amel, of cold hand [pressing the hand to the cheek ameliorates].  There was only one remedy listed–Rhus tox!!  I happened to be holding my face at the time.  Still, I didn’t believe it could be Rhus tox!  Why would I take Rhus tox (homeopathic poison ivy) for a toothache?  I had never heard of such a thing!  So, I left the house to go buy food for dinner.  I stocked up on yogurt because I knew I’d be able to eat nothing else but!  All the while, sooooo angry at my soon-to-be EX-dentist!

Noting that the usual toothache remedies weren’t working, I took my bottle of Rhus tox 30C out of my first aid kit after loading my groceries into the car.

Incredibly, not 15 minutes later, I knew there had been a change for the better!  Still driving, I noticed that the pain was much less; I couldn’t believe it!   Is Rhus tox really working???  Really???  Has it been Rhus tox all along?  Half an hour later, I knew I was on the road to recovery, and in fact, that night I ate—not yogurt—but a normal dinner!

Fast-forward now to yesterday, 4 months later, my tooth started to hurt again.

   <—Me

 The first thing I did was take Rhus tox.  Well, this is what I love about homeopathy: the remedy that worked before, doesn’t work now!  “OK,” I said, “fine!  I’ll just take Mercury, that’s supposed to work for toothaches!”  Nothing happened.  “OK,” I said, “fine!  I’ll just take Causticum!  That worked once before!”  Nothing happened. “OK, fine!” I said, “I’ll just take Silica, Silica’s worked for me once before!”  Nothing.  

By now it was time for me to pick up my daughter, who is now calling herself “Dee Dee”, from school; so I left home feeling very unwell, with a sharp pain in my tooth, which felt elongated and I couldn’t bite down.  “I’m confident I’ll find the remedy soon,” I said, as I took a dose of Hepar sulph outside of Shana’s, I mean “Dee Dee’s”, school.  Hepar seemed to actually make it worse!

By now I was once again in the supermarket, buying soup and mashed potatoes at the hot bar, still confident that I would find the right remedy before dinner.  On the way home I decided to take Belladonna because I sensed that the tooth was now pulsating, but that didn’t work either.

Once home, since the pain was sharp and Kali carb. is known for sharp pains, I decided to try that but, it didn’t work.

I remembered reading in one of my “homeopathy for dentistry” books that Pulsatilla was a near specific as an anti-bacterial in gum disease, so I tried that, and it actually did help a little, but, not a whole lot.

Dinner rolled around and luckily I had that soup and mashed potatoes because I sure needed it!  No miracle here, not yet anyway.  By now–after dinner– I am sitting down, repertorizing my case:

Teeth: elongation, sensation of
Teeth: pain, toothaches, cold, from anything, water, amel [toothache feels better from cold water]
Teeth: pain, toothaches, extending to bones, cheek
Teeth: pain, toothaches, saliva, with involuntary flow of
Teeth: pulsating pain
Teeth: sharp pain

Results of weighted analysis: Causticum, Chamomilla, Bryonia, Lachesis, Silica, Mag-carb, Mercury, Mezereum, Sepia, Lycopodium.

I hadn’t tried Bryonia so I thought I’d go with that.  Bryonia, after all, has sharp pains.  Bryonia actually helped a little.  After waiting a decent interval of roughly an hour (acute pain, after the right remedy, should definitely respond within an hour), I tried Chamomilla. Chamomilla seemed to help a little also.  It was now bed time and I was extremely demoralized!  This was not supposed to happen!  I was supposed to have found a remedy by now!  I didn’t want to go to bed in pain; how would I sleep?  I took Lachesis right before bed, and it seemed to help a little, enough that I fell asleep, but I awoke at 4 AM, still with the sharp pain.  I had to do something!

I thought about it and remembered that in the past Pyrogen had worked in these kinds of dental distress situations.  I decided to try it.

IT WORKED!!!!!!! 

Here it was, over 12 hours later, over 10 remedies later, and finally the pain started to go away; I was able to fall asleep, I woke up this morning with the tooth no longer feeling elongated and only having slight pain on biting down. “I’m going to be able to eat breakfast!” I declared.  (Last night that seemed really unlikely!)

In the rubric, “Teeth: abscess”, Pyrogen is a 3 (listed in BOLD type), which means it is very highly indicated.  There are only 3 other 3’s–Mercury, Silica and Hepar Sulph, all of which I had taken.  The problem is, Pyrogen is in no other rubrics in the Teeth chapter!  It’s not under “Toothache”, in fact, you’d be hard pressed to find it anywhere else!  The repertory isn’t perfect, and so homeopathy can be very hard sometimes.

I’m at 85% improvement now. I’m leaving to go to lunch soon.  I’ll take my Pyrogen 200C with me, you can be sure of that; I’ve got it in a small, half-ounce amber bottle of water, which I succuss (shake by pounding) 10 times before each dose, and I’m taking it as needed–which is quite frequently.  I will probably have to go up to 1M at some point, but that’s OK, I’ve got this essential acute remedy all the way up to 50M.  A long time ago, I realized that it was essential to order all the “acute” remedies up to at least 1M and some, like Arnica and Aconite, up to 10M at the very least.

Thanks to homeopathy, I’ve weathered another dental storm.  Yay!

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About the author

Elaine Lewis

Elaine Lewis, D.Hom., C.Hom.
Elaine is a passionate homeopath, helping people offline as well as online. Contact her at [email protected]
Elaine is a graduate of Robin Murphy's Hahnemann Academy of North America and author of many articles on homeopathy including her monthly feature in the Hpathy ezine, "The Quiz". Visit her website at:
https://elainelewis.hpathy.com/ and TheSilhouettes.org

4 Comments

  • Your article about the research for a remedy in tooth ache reminds me of my desperate situation some months ago. I was going to fly to hong kong and I had to give up. After an unsuccessful research for the right remedy I went under antibiotics as an extraction was in the program. The only one I did not try was Bryonia.
    I felt really defeated as, generally, I only use homeopathy, but sometimes it is necessary to consider we are not invincible. But I admire your courage in not giving up. First time, let us hope it will not come again, I will try to do the same.

  • How long should it take for the pyrogenium to work? My homeopathic Dr gave me a vile with 200ch in it. He said place 3 under the tongue 3x’s a day. I have taken it twice and the abscess over my last right molar has not burst yet. HELP!!! Please. I have also been told that oil of oregano will work as well?

  • Wendy, you should email me! I don’t check the comments very often! My contact info is at the bottom of all my articles but for some unknown reason, no one seems to know that!

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