Hi

I have just found your site and was wondering if any of you could offer me any advice?

At about the end of Feb this year I noticed a lump up at the top right of my gum - close to where the cheek flesh starts (forgive the lack of medical terms - but I have no idea about the terminology!). It didn't hurt and I thought it would go away.

It hasn't and it's started to hurt when pressed. The pain is going down the tooth, but wierdly the tooth on my bottom right hand jaw has started to hurt too which is in line with the lump on the upper jaw.

The lump is quite hard and was quite rounded, but now seems a little flatter and more spread out. When you look in the mouth - there's nothing really to see!

I have just moved to a new country and still have 5 weeks left until I am covered by my health insurance, so can anyone advise in the meantime? I have just started taking ibuprofen.

Thanking you in antipication!

I had that once or something VERY similar and my mother told me to rinse with salt water and it worker great after just a few days.

So take as much salt as you can stand and put in a cup of water that is as hot as you can stand and slosh it back and forth in your mouth and gargle with it for a minute or so. I would recomen doing this 2-3x a day if you can for maybe 3 days and it should help a lot!!

This is called an abcess. It can be very serious if not treated properly. It is an infection of the gum. Now salt water and gargling with peroxide may work, it is only a short term fix.

Is there any pus when you press on the lump? If there is, it's definitely an abscess and you should get on an antibiotic as soon as you can. The tooth will probably need a root canal, you'll need an x-ray to confirm this.
There is such a thing as "referred pain". When a tooth on the top has a problem it can cause a tooth on the bottom to ache too.