Today has been a week since I had 3 impacted wisdom teeth surgically removed. By surgically I mean I was completely unaware of the world around me via some wonderful IV sedation.
The pain I woke up though was nothing compared to what I’ve been enduring all week, progressively getting worse, not better.
I went to my regular dentist on Thursday complaining of pain, sure that I had a dry socket and unfortunately she couldn’t diagnose it because I could barely open my mouth for her to get in and take a peek.
By Saturday, the pain was unbearable and I called my husband home from work – sobbing something about being a weak mother and incapable of taking care of my kids with a “damned toothache”.
Frustrated, I called my oral surgeon who happened to be on call on the weekend and he faxed a second Rx of heavy drugs, which again didn’t work.
In the course of 7 days I have carried around some pretty potent pills making my purse resemble that of a Beverly Hills Housewife. Percocet did nothing but make me sleep. Hydromorphone didn’t even do that.
What finally, finally, brought relief was something I had in my pantry the whole time.
Cloves.
I am not one to turn to natural remedies first. I’m a “let’s drug it til it falls over” kind of medicinal mama (which apparently, according to the drugs I’ve taken this week means a lot more than I thought).
Frustrated with my tears, my husband called a dental-hygienist friend and we discovered that the paste used in the dentist’s office to treat dry socket (most assuredly what I have) is actually made with cloves.
After a little Google homework, my husband made clove oil at home for treating dry socket. What you see in the photo is ground cloves in a teabag, tied shut with dental floss, sitting in olive oil after being warmed. The oil is actually supposed to sit for 7 days for full effectiveness, so it didn’t do the trick as quickly as something so much simpler did.
We took ground cloves from the pantry, added in a few drops of water to make a paste, then rubbed the paste onto gauze and packed it on the wound. As I sit here typing this I have this miracle remedy in my mouth and feel 90% relief.
Unbelievable and a true testament to what natural remedies can do that pharmaceuticals can not. After telling my mom about our discovery she shared that this is something her parents and grandparents did for years for toothaches. I love when the original way still prevails today!
Color me green.
One of our favourite teething remedies is made from clove oil – our kids love it and it really seems to help calm them. Hope you’re feeling better soon – those wisdom teeth can be a big problem! (I was going to say they could be a big pain, but thought that was to pun-y!)
Teething! I never thought of that! I’ll have to read up on it bc we are in the midst with Everleigh – two bottom ones are through so far.
There’s a locally owned company (Winnipeg) who makes a clove teething gel and it works great – tastes great too (I tried it!) Email me if you want to know more…
Wow. This would have been helpful a few weeks ago when I had my wisdom teeth out. Instead I drugged it ’til it fell over! I’ll remember this as Sweet T cuts the rest of her teeth though. Thanks!
Wow, I had no idea cloves had that kind of power! Thank you for sharing this tip and I hope you are feeling much better!
I was just thinking of this the other day! I wanted to look into it more for teething babies. Thanks for reminding me! And sorry to hear you have had such a rough go with it 🙁
so sorry you got the dry socket. I feel (or rather felt) you pain as I’ve been there. The good news? no more wisdom teeth so it can’t happen again! I ended up with percocet as taking toradol (sp?) was like eating smarties – same result. I at least slept with the percocet and I ended up with them packed in that clove stuff from the dentist. Amazing how that works – I think because it’s healing it not just masking it. Wish I’d thought to explore that with teething. Feel better fast!
I asked the pharmacist at Kmart over 10 years ago what to get for tooth pain and he pulled a bottle of clove oil from behind the counter….cost me a little over $2 and it was the best toothache remedy I’ve ever tried!
I have had dry socket for 2 weeks now! I am on my 3rd RX of Tylenol 3, 800mg ibuprofen and amoxicillin…For some reason my dentist isn’t understanding that none of that is working. ..I just made the clove paste literally 5 mins ago after reading your post.. (crushed cloves,a little water and vaseline) all out of olive oil….Soaked a gause and packed it in.. I can honestly say the throbbing,radiating,aching pain is easing off!
That’s so great to hear, glad it helped!
It’s now day 6 after my wisdom tooth extraction and the pain medication prescribed did not ease the pain. This pain I’m experiencing I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. I tried it and within minutes had refief. Wished I had thought to research home remedies earlier could have saved myself from many sleepless nights. Never knew something like cloves would actually work but it did. I Thanks for sharing this helped me.
While this is 100% the best remedy you need to be very careful about leaving the gauze in too long. You need to get granulated tissue to fill in the wound so you can get proper healing and unfortunately with the gauze in place this is severely delayed. It also can increase the chance of infection, especially if you leave it in longer than 3 days. That said, I had dry socket and ulcers at the incision sites and it was hell on earth until I did a similar remedy just be careful not to hamper the healing process itself. Your friendly nurse 🙂