toothache has me freaked about labour!

[pinkr]

Had toothache constantly since tues...dentist has taken a softly softly approach which involved drilling as far as she could using minimal anaesthetic which means I've been three times and still not pain free. I'm not usually bothered by dentist and told her to go as deep as she could. Atty the min she thinks the nerve is angry and further work will aggravate it so I've to wait and see if it settles down. I've been eeking out my daily paracetamol allowance but been toldI can't take anything else.
Apart from feeling miserable, throbbing and shattered i'm now getting serious labour fear as surely its got to be a lot lot worse and at the min I feel I can't cope with the pain from one little nerve. I'm 29 Weeks....help!

I haven't been in labour yet as only 32 weeks but I have a theory about different types of pain, and have also been freaking out about this as my gallbladder ruptured.

Labour= end result baby

Gallbladder pain as they didn't know what it was = possible end result death

I've had horrendous toothache and you don't know what they are going to do and If it will ever end, where as you know labour will eventually end you will have a baby.

Toothache is a horrible, scary, something is wrong pain. Labour is different, its a positive pain of your body helping your baby out. Its uncomfortable and does hurt, but it feels very different from the pain from an injury. Plus you get better pain relief in labour! Try not to worry.

Oh poor you, you totally have my sympathies. I find toothache absolutely unbearable.

Giving birth hurts but its not as bad as severe toothache in my opinion. Obviously you have more pain relief options in labour as well! I would actually rather give birth than have a tooth abcess and all 3 of my births have been without pain relief.

The whole psychology of the pain helps too. Labour = positive pain so easier to deal with, toothache = completely unnecessary!

You can take co codamol in pregnancy so perhaps speak to your GP.

I was going to come on and say exactly what yellow snow did. My midwife said its a bit like a positive pain, with each contraction you are one step closer to seeing your baby.

I'm 31 wks with my second and I am the biggest wuss when it comes to pain you will ever meet but I'm doing it again so I must have been able to get through it!

You can always have pain relief as well so that helps.

I've got toothache this morning. It sucks!

Also labour isn't constant pain. It builds up to a peak then goes down and then you have a break till the next contraction.

Have you been to dr to see if you can get stronger pain relief?

theres no comparison.

pain on your head, earache headache toothache etc is maddening. it isnt the same

I've had some dental problems over the years and have given birth twice.
I would far rather give birth than have toothache!

It's a completely different type of pain, and utterly unrelated to how you will cope in labour.

I was once treated by a nurse for an extremely painful (to me) post-operative minor issue, and the cow actually said "if you're like that for this, you'll never cope with labour" which has to be amongst the most unhelpful and unpleasant thing I've been told. Especially as I wasn't even PG at the time.

And it was utterly untrue anyhow. The pain of labour is totally different from an acute pain caused by trauma.

Try not to talk yourself into being fearful. And do make sure you find out lots about what happens during labour and what the pains mean (dilating, transition, expulsive) as, although not analgesic, a good understanding tends to reduce fears and that does help on the day.

Sorry to hear you have toothache - it's awful

Fwiw, I am absolutely terrified of the dentist - I have to be sedated for a filling. Anything to do with teeth makes me feel sick with worry, and the slightest toothache (I have a wisdom tooth that plays up) feels me with dread. For some reason, childbirth was absolutely fine - I had 3 labours on gas and air only, and one of them was a ventouse delivery!

I have toothache at the moment. BAD. Awaiting wisdom tooth removal. Last time I had toothache, it was one of my worst pains ever.
I have given birth twice, endde up as 2 CS's, after being fully dilated. And I found birth a breeze and low pain, compared to toothache. Just saying.Goes to show!!
Others have very painfiul births.
Don't they say that passing a kidneystone, is one of the worst pains EVER?
Please, try not to worry.

I've had nerve death in tooth pain. I've also had 2 days of difficult labour. If I had to do one again it would be the labour without question. The tooth pain was unpredictable, it came in waves, no idea when they'd start and stop, would it become constant, how long would it go on for, what was the solution. Awful. Labour predictable and with pattern, definite end. Entirely different thing. I dread the tooth thing ever happening again. I don't dread labour.

I remember reading threads when I was pregnant about 'what's the most painful thing you've had' and toothache recurred much more than labour.

I have suffered with severe toothache and neuralgia in the past, too the point where I've wanted to cut my own head off i have also laboured twice and am expecting my third I would give birth any day of the week rather than suffer toothache. I found soluble paracetamol to be more helpful with toothache. HTH

Having had excruciating toothaches myself due to abcesses and wisdom teeth i can tell you now, having given birth 4 times which is worse.
Childbirth is painful, i won't dress it down, and each birth was different but i would choose giving birth anyday over those nasty toothaches i have had in the past.
A: you get a beautiful baby at the end
B: the pain is over after baby is born

With a toothache
A: pain can go on for weeks
B: nothing nice comes at the end

I've recently gone through root canal treatment as my nerve was inflamed and dying off. I suffered a month of horrendous pain as the dentist was treading slowly, eventually resulting in root canal treatment.

I've also had 2 babies, gas and air for first one and nothing for second. IMO there is no comparison pain wise, toothache is torture. If you can cope with that you can cope with anything. I also had a sprained ankle (twice) and the pain had me in tears - labour didn't.

Also remember there are more pain relief options available during labour

I don't want to scare the OP but I just had an analgesia free birth and dear God it hurt. Anyone who says labour hurts less than tooth ache had a very different labour to me! Does toothache make you feel like you are going to split in two, does it make you scream that you are dying, is it followed by hours of stitching of your most private parts???

And as Binger says there are a lot of pain relief options for labour whereas we get plain old paracetemol for teeth

Yes artichoke i came close to trying to rip my own head off put it that way. It went on four weeks and no pain relief apart from paracetemol, with a failed root canal and extracted tooth as the end result. Couldn't sleep, so much so i ended up with migraines too aswell as hallucinations. I had a face that resembled a punched baboon and constantly rocked for hours in tears

I've had 5 babies.
I've had the epidural wear off during a cesarean.
I've recovered from another cesarean without any pain relief.
The most painful experiences of my life have been toothache and haemorrhoids.
HTH!

Labour pain will come to an end and you will be holding a lovely baby at the end. The more painful it gets the closer you are to meeting your baby.

I would take labour over toothache pain any day!

Thank goodness I'm not the only one! I've started being woken by horrendous leg cramps & keep thinking "if I can't deal with these, what am I going to be like in labour?!"

So now I'm going to try & focus on it being positive pain & contraction pains not being constant when I next freak out!

Maybe we've had different toothache to you artichook? I'm talking nerve death tooth ache, what my dentist describes as the worst dental pain possible. Pain that you have to breathe through, that you can't talk through, or even particularly engage brain through. I've also had other toothache, the niggle stuff, the wisdom tooth stuff, and yes that isn't so painful.

Oh thanks ladies...you've cheered me up! I think the constant pain is just wearing me down and helpful keep telling me that if I think its sore now....

LastButOne thanks for the memories!

I had an incomplete root canal filling. I am genetically different and have extra root canals, that the dentist did not find until 18 months of agony later. All that time the nerve was painful and firing off at random.

Labour is easy in comparison.

It really doesn't compare. I'm a right wimp with pain. Period pain has me crippled some months and I had a lovely gas and air helped water birth. I did a bit of hypnobirthing which was good and an nct yoga class, you're stronger than you think.