Headache after visiting the dentist

Visiting the dentist is a very unpleasant experience. Having headaches after visiting the dental office is a common occurrence. If a doctor removes or prescribes treatment for a diseased tooth, a headache may occur.

The reasons for this may be the following:

Side effect from medications;
Severe dental disease;
Poor oral health;
A large number of teeth undergoing treatment;
Poor condition of the body as a whole, the presence of chronic diseases;
Senile age of the patient;

Most often, pain caused by the cessation of the painkiller goes away on its own. If the pain only gets worse, you need to take an analgesic and consult a specialist for advice.

One of the possible causes of headaches may be the removal of a diseased tooth. Headaches occur especially often when a wisdom tooth is removed (the procedure is not always simple). This type of operation tends to damage bone tissue and gums, which leads to pain.

When correcting a malocclusion, headaches often appear. Pain can be of various types:

Pain in the ear area;
The occurrence of pain in the temporal part of the head;
The occurrence of pain in the occipital part;

If you follow clear treatment instructions, this type of headache goes away in a short time.

Headaches after using anesthesia

Very often, dentists use local anesthesia when treating teeth. After undergoing anesthesia, many patients experience headaches. There are several reasons for this type of pain:

Presence of intolerance to anesthesia or incorrect choice of medication;
Location of the diseased tooth in remote places;

Most often, the headache is aching in nature and tends to increase when moving the head.

If headaches began after the extraction of a diseased tooth, it is necessary to find the cause of the pain; it may be a complication of the operation.

Difference between general and local dental anesthesia [1]

The condition when only local pain sensitivity in the part where the intervention is performed is “turned off” is called local anesthesia. Unlike general anesthesia, with such anesthesia the person remains conscious, can communicate with the doctor, perform the necessary actions (open or close the mouth, sit under a special lamp).

General anesthesia is also used in dentistry. But general anesthesia for dental treatment is rarely used and only when necessary, for example, in complex surgical cases or for certain diseases, when the patient’s condition does not allow him to undergo treatment under local anesthesia. When and what anesthesia should be used in a particular case, the doctor decides on an individual basis.

Headache due to complications arising after dental intervention

Many patients experience headaches after visiting the dentist. Various factors can contribute to the appearance of pain symptoms:

The appearance of complications that manifested themselves during dental treatment;
Intolerance and allergic reactions to the use of drugs;
Contraindications to tooth extraction;
The appearance of a specific odor in the place of dental treatment;
The presence of inflammation of the tissues of the oral cavity;
The presence of swelling of the oral tissues;

Most often, pain occurs in several places. They begin in the jaw and gradually spread throughout the head. Painful sensations can be either sharp or aching. Complications after going to the dentist may depend on the presence of certain diseases in the patient:

Very often, pain appears in patients suffering from diabetes. The headache may last for a long time;
Ear disease, which can progress during dental treatment and cause headaches;
Delay in contacting a specialist, which results in severe diseases of the teeth and gums, which are accompanied by painful symptoms of the head;

After symptoms of complications occur, you must go to the hospital to prescribe effective treatment. The occurrence of headaches may be due to the progression of certain dental diseases. Such as:

Periodontitis – aching pain occurs in the temporal parts of the head;
Alveolitis - severe pain occurs that begins in the jaw area;

What other possible complications are there?

Complications after dental implantation are classified into early and late. The first includes symptoms that arose in the first two days, the second - after a month or more.

Normal reactions to surgery include:

pain,
swelling,
increase in body temperature,
hematoma.

However, sometimes there are more serious problems that require urgent help, otherwise removal of the implant cannot be avoided:

Long-term pain - if the discomfort does not go away for more than a week, you need to determine its cause. The problem can only be solved by a specialist; self-medication is dangerous due to the development of complications.
Increased body temperature - readings above 38 degrees should alert you, they may indicate an inflammatory process has begun.
Numbness - in the first hours after surgery, lack of sensitivity is normal, since the effect of the anesthetic is still ongoing. Prolonged numbness may indicate injury to the trigeminal nerve.
A feeling of heaviness in the maxillary sinus occurs due to the implant falling inside it. This is a specialist mistake when calculating the required length of a titanium rod. The situation requires the removal of the structure.
Peri-implantitis is the initial stage of implant rejection; it can develop at the very beginning of engraftment and after its completion. The provoking factor is inflammation of the soft and bone tissues of the jaw. The reason is usually a violation of the surgical protocol on the part of the doctor or failure to comply with the rules of oral hygiene on the part of the patient.
Rejection is an advanced stage of the inflammatory process, when treatment will no longer produce results.

Opinion of a dentist-implantologist : “In my practice, there were several cases when patients complained of headaches after the end of the prosthetics stage. For the most part, it was associated with increased load on the crown at a certain position of the lower teeth to the upper ones. If there are intense, persistent pain in the head after implantation, trigeminal neuralgia must be excluded.”

Headaches after dental implantation

Pain may occur during the recovery period and after dental implantation surgery. Patients usually experience headaches for several days after surgery. The cause of pain is inflammatory processes in the tissues surrounding the implant. For severe pain, the doctor will prescribe a painkiller. If the pain does not go away within five days, you should contact a specialist who will check the implants for surgical complications and prescribe appropriate treatment.

I had a tooth removed and my head hurts: what should I do?

As a rule, tooth extraction is a last resort, which dentists undertake only after all other treatment options have failed to produce the desired results. This procedure is directly related to surgery, which is traumatic for the oral cavity. Therefore, it is not surprising that after a tooth has been removed, your head, ear, gums hurt and you feel a general malaise. However, it is necessary to distinguish those cases when the headache is a consequence of a reaction to damage to bone tissue and gums caused during surgery, from painful sensations signaling post-operative complications.

A tooth has been removed and you have a headache: who is to blame and what to do?

There may be several reasons for headaches after tooth extraction. Here are the most common ones:

The result of side effects of medications.
Postoperative condition of the oral cavity.

If the reason that a tooth was removed and your head hurts is precisely the problems listed above, then you should not be afraid of such pain. As a rule, it occurs immediately after the anesthesia wears off and does not last long, subsiding within a few hours, or a maximum of a day. If you are sure that this is your option, we advise you to be patient a little and everything will go away by itself.

Do not take painkillers without the advice of your dentist! After all, they can affect the clinical picture and complicate the timely detection of complications after surgery. Let's move on to just this option: the tooth has been removed, quite a lot of time has passed, and the headache does not subside. You need to be aware that most likely this is not an ordinary migraine, which can be relieved with pills, but a signal from your body that something went wrong after the operation. Of course, maybe this is an individual reaction of your body, or a disease not at all related to tooth extraction. But it is best to seek advice from the dentist who performed the operation, and he will be able to answer your question about why you have a headache after tooth extraction.

Well, the symptoms after which you should definitely make an appointment with a doctor are the occurrence of a headache a few days after the operation. If such pain radiates to the ear, and is also accompanied by an unpleasant odor and taste in the mouth, this may mean that the healing process of the tooth socket is proceeding with complications, and only a professional can help you.

You can get a consultation at the DENTISTRY clinic. Make an appointment by calling +7 (8342) 308–088 or using the form below.

Make an appointment

Treatment methods for headaches after dental surgery

If you have a headache for a long time, your dentist will prescribe treatment using the following medications:

Anti-inflammatory drugs - help relieve inflammation;
Analgesics – eliminate pain;
Antispasmodics – relieve spasms that cause pain;

If the cause of pain is inflammatory processes in the oral cavity, then the presence of toxins, which are eliminated by the use of antibiotics, should initially be eliminated, and only then the prescribed medications should be used.

Taking such medications must be done under the supervision of a physician. The use of such drugs is contraindicated for patients suffering from stomach diseases.

For what procedures is anesthesia used [1, 2]

Pain relief in dentistry cannot be overemphasized. So that the patient does not experience discomfort, and the specialist has the opportunity to perform the entire necessary amount of treatment, anesthesia is used for almost all dental interventions. The types of anesthesia in dentistry are varied, and the doctor chooses the method of anesthesia depending on the upcoming procedure.

Modern ideal anesthetic in dentistry:
Affects as few organs or processes as possible.
Poorly absorbed.
Does not have an irritating effect.
Works quickly, deeply, long lasting.
Based on materials from “Local anesthesia and anesthesiology in dentistry: a textbook”, Ph.D. Krazhan S. N.

Application or superficial local anesthesia in dentistry is carried out using a spray or gel with an anesthetic component. The drug is applied to the mucous membrane and acts quickly, but not for long.

Before the anesthetic injection
For treating mucous membranes during stomatitis, suppuration, gingivitis
When performing professional hygiene
During crown fitting

Infiltration anesthesia is the administration of an anesthetic using a syringe before therapy. Lasts about 1 hour.

Relieving pain with folk remedies

If you experience headaches after a recent visit to the dentist, you must first identify the cause of the disease. It is impossible to do this on your own without visiting a doctor. You can use some traditional medicines, but you should consult your doctor before using them.

Drinking mint tea is good for eliminating cramps and reducing headaches;
Freshly prepared viburnum juice - drink one hundred grams for headaches twice a day for five days;
The use of hot foot baths is a proven folk method for relieving headaches;

You should know that the occurrence of headaches after dental treatment may be one of the first prerequisites for the occurrence of more dangerous diseases.
Painful sensations mean that inflammatory processes are occurring in the body, so you need to consult a specialist; you should not self-medicate. Moscow metro station Zvezdnaya, Danube Avenue, 23

Types of reactions to pain [1, 2]

The way a patient feels pain depends on many reasons. The main ones are:

the intensity of the factor that caused the pain and the body’s reaction to it;
psycho-emotional state of the patient.

The first is a sensitive reaction to pain. When a dentist performs any manipulation, sensitive receptors are turned on and a cascade of reactions develops from the endocrine system, parts of the central nervous system, and the brain. The patient is aware, feels pain and “gives” appropriate reactions to it.

The second point is reactions that depend on the psycho-emotional component, on the data of the volitional sphere. A person experiences fear, anxiety, nervousness, and physical and motor manifestations in the form of screaming, crying, and defensive actions. The pulse and breathing become more frequent, profuse sweat is released, the mouth becomes dry, the regulation of vascular tone is disrupted, and subsequently blood pressure increases or decreases.

The fight against pain in dentistry is necessary not only to eliminate pain for the sake of the effectiveness and comfort of therapy. This is also important because pain, its anticipation, as well as the consequences of a painful intervention cause severe stress, which affects the state of the body and affects further adherence to treatment.