why does a toothache seems unbearable compared to any other body ache?
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Physician here. Pain is completely relative to an individual. I’ve taken care of grandmas in their 80s and 90s who don’t even flinch when I poke a needle into their artery to do special blood tests (it’s a lot more painful than a regular blood draw and I can corroborate from my own experience of a friend doing it to me). Then, I’ll do the same test on a 28 year old man and they’ll be freaking out and even had young guys cry.
I’ve even seen an 88 year old grandma barely “wince” when an orthopedist put her dislocated shoulder back into place, and she didn’t want pain meds or anything else to take the edge off. I’ll never forget that lady, she was cracking jokes with me afterward saying she’s humpty dumpty and so silly for tripping and dislocating it in the first place. 😂
Point is, a toothache can be very painful for some, and merely “annoying” or “irritating” to others. People have different pain thresholds, different pain tolerances, and different ways of coping with it when it occurs. A woman who has experienced childbirth often uses that as a measuring stick for other types of pain, since childbirth ranks up there (I’m told, and from what I’ve seen as a male physician). Another one I hear people saying as the worst pain of their life are kidney stones and gout.
If you’ve not had something more painful than a toothache, then sure, it will rank up there for ya. It tends to be on the more painful side due to the constant irritation to the nerve (mouth movement, air moving around the teeth, chewing, clenching, tongue pushing on the tooth etc.) which stimulates the pain sensation to the brain. But again, take two people with similar tooth problems and one may feel significantly more pain than the other.
Hope this helps answer your question.
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