What to Eat When You Have Tooth Pain

It can be hard to eat when your teeth hurt. When things are hurting – and this goes anywhere in your body – the urge is not to use that part of the body until things feel better. Pain can take many forms. Some kinds of pain are ok to work through – soreness is a prime example of your body getting stronger through use.

Some kinds of pain you do need to obey that urge to not let yourself overuse, so you can recover from it – or at least wait for the dentist or orthodontist to put it right. A damaged dental crown or dental bridge work can be a major cause of tooth pain – and possibly a visit to a personal injury law office, or a work injury compensation lawyer if the injury happened on the job.

If you’re waiting on dental care you’re probably going to have a list of foods that are ok to eat. These are probably on it. They’re foods that are easy to chew or require no chewing, that will minimize the exposure to a painful tooth or to jaw pain while you’re waiting to heal or waiting for treatment by an affordable dentist.

Etiology of a Toothache

Toothache pain typically gets started when the gums around the teeth become inflamed, moving them out of the alignment nature or braces put them into. A toothache can also be caused by an oral abscess or a cavity. Dental prophylaxis and certain dental treatments can also cause temporary oral pain, and oral surgery will cause pain until it heals.

There are many causes of oral pain, but in this article, tooth pain is caused by an infection or injury, whether accidental or deliberate. A deliberate injury, also, can be either of the aggressive kind, like being punched in the face, or it can be caused by surgery. Surgery is indistinguishable in your body from any other injury or trauma, and like injury or trauma, takes time and care to recover from. If you have had oral surgery, you will receive information from your oral surgeon as to what foods they want you to focus on and stay away from. As your surgeon is a trained medical professional familiar with your specific case, you are advised to follow your surgeon’s list rather than the subject of this article whenever the two differ.

Water

Water is the most basic thing that not only can you eat (or in this case, drink) during an episode of tooth pain, but most people should be drinking more of it to begin with. Water – plain, pure water – is important because it hydrates without dehydrating (like coffee and tea) and without added sugar (like sodas and juices). If you have broken or missing dental crowns, the sugars and acid in juice and soda could damage the teeth it’s protecting, so avoiding juice and sticking to water could be a good idea here. On a list of what to eat when you have tooth pain, water is more like something to drink, but it’s an essential thing anyway and most people don’t get enough of it.

Soft-Cooked Eggs

Soft-boiled eggs and scrambled eggs are a wonder for people recovering from oral injury or surgery of any kind. Delicious and filling, and requiring very little in the way of chewing, a soft scrambled egg can provide a delightfully savory break from a diet after surgery that may be full of bland food.

Soft-boiled eggs have many of the same benefits as scrambled eggs: Their soft texture and only semi-solid yolk make chewing and swallowing easier. Add salt and pepper and serve either alone or in a broth for a breakfast or lunch.

Avoid fried or hard-boiled eggs. The latter can be tough and difficult to eat with a sore mouth, and the former can develop crispy bits that while you may appreciate while whole, could cause problems to a mouth recovering from injury.

Cottage Cheese and Yoghurt

Soft milk products generally not including sugars other than lactose, these are popular foods for people on restricted diets. Cottage cheese and yoghurt contain a good amount of calories and can be flavored to provide dietary variety. They are good for snacking, and the former with salt and pepper can be eaten at any time of day.

Smoothies

A smoothie, for the three of you who don’t know, is a blended food of fruit, vegetables, greens, milk and yogurt. Smoothies are a staple workout food, and with “easy to drink” high on the list of their attributes, a smoothie isn’t going to result in personal injury claims.

Mashed potatoes

You can live on potatoes. Potatoes are a whole meal in a convenient skin, and they’re tasty. Unlike most vegetables, which tend to be hard to get enough calories from, potatoes are rich with starch and sugars, by far one of the most calorie-dense vegetables you can eat. Add milk and butter, and you have mashed potatoes, one of the tastiest foods ever to grace the Thanksgiving table.

Because mashed potatoes are boiled and soft, they’re easy to eat and don’t cause too many troubles from a perspective of aggravating tooth pain. Nutritionally dense and not requiring much in the way of chewing makes mashed potatoes a food an injury lawyer could love.

Puree soups

Another staple of those who have had a dental injury or other condition causing painful teeth, pureed soups are another chance to get some nutrition without chewing. Soups like tomato bisque or pureed chicken noodle soup will allow you to get a nearly full or full meal without having to aggravate the teeth that are hurting.

Good puree soups for an injured mouth include tomato basil bisque and butternut squash soup. If your problems require avoiding acid, butternut squash is especially good, as the rich squash is flavorful while not having the acidity of tomatoes.

Custards and Puddings

Custard and pudding are closely related milk-based dessert dishes given richness by the inclusion of egg. Custards and puddings are smooth, creamy, rich and decadent desserts that are a delight any time, but especially when chewing becomes a torture. For people who are having mouth problems, custard can make things feel easier to handle while still being satisfying. And if you’re planning a dinner party and are suddenly struck by an oral injury, a strategically placed course of custard will help things go smoothly.

Gelatin

Gelatins are an easy to digest food that can also be chewed minimally or not at all. A gelatin is a suspension of flavorful liquid in proteins that are derived from collagen. Originally all gelatin was from animal collagen but in recent years, techniques have evolved to derive collagen from plant sources, opening gelatin as an option for vegetarians.

Most people think of gelatins in context of dessert, and many gelatins are desserts, but gelatin shows up repeatedly in your favorite foods. Gelatin gives sauces a glossy, thick cohesiveness, and gelatin cubes are those famous wobbly, questionably fruit-flavored snacks. Many people now don’t care for the mouthfeel of gelatin, but if you are having a hard time chewing, it can be a wonderful thing to eat for dessert, especially because gelatin desserts make the mouth feel cooler.

Flour Tortillas

Tortillas are the staple bread of Mexican culture. Thin flatbreads cooked on a griddle, tortillas differ from pancakes in that they lack leavening agents like baking soda or powder and are cooked mostly dry to give them a smooth finish, then reheated when it’s time to serve to give them a charred, blistery surface.

When your mouth is in pain, however, that char can be an insurmountable task to eat and the best option may be to steam or microwave the tortillas instead to make them pliable without giving them crispy spots. Eat them by themselves, or combine with some soft-cooked, shredded meat, cheese or sour cream, and soft vegetables to make pain-friendly tacos.

Soft-cooked chicken and other poultry

Combined with flour tortillas, chicken or other poultry and meat that’s cooked until soft and shredded can be a savory relief for people with mouth pain who are tired of eating courses of soup, gelatin, and custard for every meal. Every palate needs some variety in order to stay engaged; a bored eater can either be pushed to overindulge, to gain from volume what they lack from the specific foods they’re eating or can find it difficult to eat food at all, as they lack interest in what’s going into their mouths.

If you’re getting bored of your menu while waiting for an emergency dentist visit, a taco made with a soft-steamed flour tortilla and some shredded chicken can be an alternative to simply eating the same foods.

Soft Fruits

Fruits like strawberries, blueberries, and bananas are nutritional superstars and can help any person experiencing mouth pain have a flavorful snack while minimizing the need to chew. Avoid blackberry and raspberry-related fruits, however, as these have large, hard seeds inside their barriers that can get lodged in an injured tooth and cause further damage and pain.

Things to Avoid

There are some foods to avoid when you have tooth pain. Everybody understands that hard nuts and grains should be avoided because of their strong probability of triggering an avalanche of mouth pain. When you’re avoiding foods because you have pain in your mouth, any crunchy or hard vegetable can cause a problem or worse, make a dental injury from a minor one into a major one, that might need oral surgery to fix.

Other foods to avoid when you have tooth pain include most meats, since meat fibers can get stuck in your teeth, worsening pain, and citrus fruits like oranges and grapefruit. If you have tooth pain, maybe consider putting off that barbecue until you can get it seen to.

Avoid acidic foods and plan to avoid mouthwashes that contain alcohol, because they can irritate exposed nerves that are often the cause of mouth pain.

If You Need Help

If your tooth pain is caused by an injury, there are legal options for assistance. Medical and accidental injuries can cause severe and long-lasting pain that you deserve compensation for. Your local legal professionals at a personal injury law office can help you if your tooth pain was caused by a car accident or by somebody else’s action. If you have a medical injury, know that you have options and rights. A legal malpractice lawyer can help you if your injury was caused by a doctor or dentist.

In Conclusion

Dental pain can be a severe problem that lasts for days or weeks. A dental infection can easily become septic and cause cascading infection through the rest of your body, so tooth pain and dental injuries and damage need to be seen to as quickly as possible, rather than waiting and suffering for weeks.

Everyone experiences minor tooth pain at various times, and a sore tooth or bruised gum isn’t necessarily cause for concern. But if your tooth pain is caused by an injury, or it lasts for more than a few days, it may be the harbinger of a more serious problem. Talk to an affordable dentist to get your teeth checked out if this sounds like something you’ve been dealing with. Dental care affects every part of your quality of life.

The advice given in this blog can’t substitute for dental care. If you are experiencing tooth pain, you should make an appointment with a dentist as quickly as possible. If cost is a concern, many dentists have payment plans, and medical school dental departments perform surgery at an extremely reduced cost or even free for needy patrons. Your medical school surgery experience will help the next generation of dentists learn their trade in a controlled environment under the supervision of an experienced doctor.