How Long Does Orajel Last?

It can feel like a red hot knife in your gums. When you’ve got a toothache, you’d yank that tooth out with pliers if it meant an end to the pain.

Thankfully, you don’t have to do that right now because you have Orajel! Still, you want the pain to end and not just be temporarily dulled. And that begs the question, how long does Orajel last? Because there’s nothing worse than feeling that sweet, sweet relief and then having the pain of the toothache flair up again.

That’s what this article is for, and it will tell you everything you need to know about Orajel and how long it will last for you.

How Long Does Orajel Last?

Once you apply the Orajel to the affected area, you will feel instant and full relief in seconds, and it lasts at full strength for 15-20 minutes. After that time, the total numbness starts to wear off and the pain will simply be lessened at a reduced level for several hours. This will still give you some continued relief, but you can use Orajel up to four times per day in order to continue to get full relief.

The lessened pain will take a searing and burning toothache down to a dull ache, which should give you plenty of time to go see your dentist and get some help. So, to answer the question, it will last for about 15-20 minutes at full strength, while continuing to last at a reduced strength for several hours after that.

How Do You Apply Orajel?

While you might think that more painkilling gel will provide a much greater effect for you, instead you need to follow the instructions on the label. You need to use the smallest amount possible, which is often the amount of the label, because it is very powerful.

You shouldn’t be using very large amounts, because then your body might absorb too much benzocaine. That could make other parts of your mouth and face very quickly start to go numb.

So make sure to take small dollops of Orajel and then gently apply it to the area of your mouth where you have the toothache, and don’t be tempted to use too much. You should get the instant effect of the Orajel every single time you use it, and that should be enough to get you to a dentist.

What Is A ToothAche?

Before you can understand how Orajel works to stop a toothache, you need to understand what a toothache is and why it occurs. A toothache is an aching tooth, often caused by the root area of your tooth when it gets irritated. If the nerves in the root of the tooth or the nerves around the tooth get irritated, then they flare up and that causes the pain.

They can get irritated in several different ways, including by an infection of the tooth, because of tooth decay, because of an injury to the tooth, or even the loss of a tooth. Cavities can also inflame the pulp of the tooth, and the pulp is what holds all the nerve endings, so inflammation causes more pain for you too.

Gum disease can also cause a toothache, as can a loss of enamel. Whenever these circumstances happen, you will find that the protection of your teeth (either the gums or the enamel covering the roots and the nerves) is shrinking away and that leaves the more sensitive parts of your teeth exposed.

The Symptoms Of A Toothache

The only symptom that might matter to you is the pain you are feeling, but you can also get headaches, sensitivity to the heat or the cold, bleeding in your mouth, as well as bad breath and a bad taste in your mouth.

Your toothache symptoms might not even be the worst of it. Dental pain can be the symptom of dental decay, tooth fractures, and even gum disease. While you might want to simply spread Orajel on the problem area and call it a day, you need to set up an appointment with your dentist in order to figure out the problem before everything starts to ache!

How Can Orajel Help?

Orajel is a toothache gel that you can get over the counter or from a pharmacy, and it works just like toothpaste. You apply the gel directly to the toothache or the painful area, and then it starts to work! Orajel contains the active ingredient known as Benzocaine, which is a topical local anesthetic.

It is used to relieve pain and itching for a lot of ailments, including sunburn or other minor burns, insect bites or stings, poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, minor cuts, or scratches and cuts.

But what we are interested in is its ability to fight toothaches, and benzocaine does this by deadening the nerve endings in the skin. Yes, the very things that are causing you pain with your toothache (the inflamed and irritated nerve endings) are doing to be deadened and cooled off by applying this gel.

The way pain works is that your nerves send a signal to the brain that a part of the body hurts, and the brain reacts to the pain to make it stop. However, Orajel deadens the pain and prevents the brain from ever getting those pain signals in the first place, and it works quickly to block the pain pathways. It also doesn’t cause unconsciousness like other anesthetics, and it is available without a prescription.

Other painkillers and solutions for toothaches often take 30 minutes or more to work, leaving you to sit in the pain of the toothache while waiting for relief. Even when the painkillers last a long time, that 30-minute wait time to get the relief often isn’t worth it.

However, Orajel is one of the best things that you can get to relieve your toothache pain, and it will work in seconds!

Also, you can apply it up to four times a day, so even if you manage to outlast the very long time Orajel lasts, you can simply place more on it whenever you feel the pain start to flare up.

How Will A Dentist Treat My Toothache?

Once you make it to your local dentist’s office, then you might wonder how exactly your dentist will make the pain go away and fix your mouth for good. After all, no matter how effective it happens to be, you can’t apply Orajel to your mouth forever.

As we’ve seen above, a toothache can be caused by many different things, and your dentist is going to look at your mouth and see why the toothache has occurred.

If there’s tooth decay, then your dentist will work to remove it and replace the decayed area on the inside of your tooth with a filling. And if the filling is what happens to be causing your problem, then they will remove the loose or broken filling, remove any decay, and then place a new filling in its place.

If your toothache is caused because the pulp inside the tooth is infected, then root canal treatment can remove the infected pulp. Then the dentist will put in a special type of filling to reinforce the tooth and prevent any more infections.

For most toothaches, this is what needs to be done, but if the toothache is so severe it can’t be treated, or the dentist can’t get to the tooth because it is impacted, then the tooth might need to be removed.

Having the tooth removed is often a worst-case scenario for everyone involved, so hopefully, that won’t happen to your mouth!

How Can You Prevent A Toothache?

Even though Orajel is very good for treating a toothache, it would be better if you didn’t have to use it at all because you worked to prevent toothaches from occurring in your mouth! For starters, in order to prevent all the issues that wind up causing toothaches, you need to keep your teeth and gums as healthy as you can. This means you need to brush your teeth twice a day, floss once a day, avoid sugar and sugary drinks, and work to keep your teeth safe.

Make sure to go to your dentist for checkups as well, not just whenever you’ve got a large toothache that needs to be fixed up! Your dentist will be able to point out problem areas in your mouth that can turn into toothaches if you don’t get a handle on them.

Make Sure To Use Orajel When The Toothache Pain Starts!

Even with all the prevention in the world, a toothache can still pop up and ruin your entire day. So whenever you need to get the pain to more manageable levels, make sure to apply Orajel and watch the toothache go totally numb in seconds! Then get yourself to a dentist and get it checked out and fixed!