Last year, I had what I have come to believe was the worst toothache in the history of toothaches. Due to scheduling conflicts, I couldn’t make it into the dentist right away and had to take care of the pain myself. I wanted to avoid taking heavy narcotics or prescription pain medications as much as I could and tried to find an alternative therapy. On the recommendation of a local pharmacist, I purchased some clove seeds.

I put the cloves in my mouth, between the teeth that hurt, and bit down as hard as I could, which released the clove juice into my mouth. In about two minutes, I had complete and total relief from the pain. Cloves can be found in most spice racks and work just as well as the more expensive clove oil.

The taste of the cloves is strong and slightly bitter, but the cloves have a numbing property which quickly alleviates the pain of a toothache. In addition, cloves can be used for gum problems, and clove oil can be gargled with water for throat pain. Because of its antiseptic properties, it does more than just relieve the pain, it also helps stop infections.

Eugenol is the active component in a clove, which has natural anti-bacterial properties and is known as a natural, topical pain killer. Because of these properties, some dentists use it with Zinc when mixing up their temporary crowns after a root canal and cloves are an ingredient in many natural toothpastes, such as Tom’s Toothpaste.

When I used cloves to relieve the pain of my toothache, I carried around a small bottle of the spice that I purchased at the grocery store. Although my friends and family looked at me strangely for carrying around a bottle of cloves with me everywhere I went, the pain relief that it offered for me was well worth any embarrassment that I may have felt.

In addition to the dental benefits of cloves, clove oil is reported to have benefits that extend to cancer prevention, cardio-vascular health benefits, and can supposedly repel mosquitos for up to four or five hours. While I can’t attest for the extra health benefits of cloves (which are reported on a wide variety of homeopathic health sites), my experience with cloves as a pain-killer for my toothache has definitely convinced me of the pain killing properties cloves.