ODONTALGIA, OR TOOTHACHE.
This is also a very general trouble during pregnancy, and sometimes a very severe one. Like several other sympathetic affections it is very irregular as to its first appearance and duration, some suffering from it most of the time, almost without intermission, while others only have it at intervals, and but slightly.
It sometimes depends upon unsound teeth, but is frequently experienced without any such cause, and is then a true neuralgia. When it arises from a bad tooth, the pain is usually confined more or less to the neighborhood of the tooth, but when it is neuralgic it extends over the greater part or the whole of the jaw and face, and darts about from one part to another. In true toothache there is also usually more or less inflammation and swelling, while in the most agonizing neuralgia nothing of the kind can be seen.
The treatment must be regulated by circumstances. If the pain appears to be kept up by an unsound tooth, it should by all means be extracted, unless the patient be so exceedingly nervous and irritable that abortion is to be feared, in which case the pain must be alleviated as well as it can be, though there is almost as much danger in leaving the tooth in such cases as in extracting it. A few leeches to the gums will sometimes relieve, or a mustard poultice to the cheek, or a blister behind the ear. The stomach or bowels being out of order may also keep up the irritation, and regulating them may materially assist in giving relief. Some persons are relieved by lotions of camphor, or laudanum, and others by washes of cayenne tea, or alum water. In the neuralgic form, when no particular tooth can be found in fault, the treatment must be more general than local. The Carbonate of Iron Pills, which can be purchased at the druggists ready made, have frequently an excellent effect; from two to four may be taken at a dose, twice a day, the bowels being kept open, if necessary, by a little tincture of rhubarb. If the pain comes at regular intervals, or intermits, it may frequently be stopped by quinine. Two of the ordinary quinine pills may be taken every five hours, for two or three days. If the head feels oppressed by their use, the dose must be lessened to one. M. Guillemeau recommends the following to be tried if other means fail, and I have known it to be of decided benefit. Take the whites of two eggs, and two ounces of common black pepper, in powder, and beat them well together. Spread this on some tow or cotton, and lay it on the cheek. It may be kept on till it causes considerable irritation, and sometimes may be used on both sides.
Some females have been relieved by bathing the face in cold water, or keeping ice in the mouth, and others by hot fomentations. It has also been recommended to fill the mouth with cold water, and bathe the cheek with hot at the same time!
Occasionally an abscess, or gum boil will form, and when there seems a tendency to that it may be promoted by keeping a roasted fig in between the cheek and gum, over the part where the abscess points; when full, it should be lanced, as the discharge usually gives relief.
This pain is however very obstinate sometimes, and defies all treatment, but is seldom of such long duration when so severe.
DERANGEMENTS OF THE APPETITE.
The powerful sympathetic action of the womb on the stomach produces not only nausea and vomiting, but various derangements of the appetite and taste also. All of these require notice, and some need attention.
Anorexia.—This means a complete distaste, or even disgust, for food, sometimes of particular articles only, and sometimes for those of every kind. It seldom lasts beyond the fourth month, but occasionally during the whole period. It is remarkable how some females will be affected in this way, and how little they will eat, for several months together. This however is scarcely ever of any consequence, for the system does not seem to suffer in the slightest degree; on the contrary, the mother will remain quite stout, and the child be born fully developed, though the quantity of food taken has apparently been scarcely sufficient to sustain life.