Can I take pain medication for a toothache?

[mikarox]

Can I take pain medication for a toothache. Im a diabetic and I dont know what medicines I cant take. Is tylenol 3 ok?



Thanks,
mikarox

[JDRF-VOL-SG]

If you ever have any doubts about whether a medication will raise your blood sugar levels, CALL YOUR PHARMACIST! Most pharmacists are wonderfully helpful when people call and ask questions about medications. I personally have never had any problems with pain meds such as Tylenol 3, but read the fine print to see if there are warnings, and if there are, be careful and test more frequently when on the medicine. As for tylenol 3, it has codeine in it, and one of the side effects that is listed is dizziness and light-headed feelings, which can also be symptoms of low blood sugar. So be careful if you take something like this that might confuse your ability to tell if your glucose levels have dropped too low. Testing often is the best way to prevent some confusion about your sugar levels when on a medication like this.

[duped]

I had an infected tooth that was hidden (not diagnosed) that probably was at least partially to blame for developing diabetes due to the effect of chronic infection (toxins, stress) on the body.  I assume you fixed the tooth at the dentist office.  If not, go immediately and treat the root of the problem!  Now, taking Tylenol is fine for pain.  Ibuprofen and aspirin are also okay (barring something wrong with you that prohibits their use) but they have an affect on the stomach lining with chronic use.  I did not use pain pills for pain much, but this last injury I used Vicodin in order to be able to work with excruciating lower back pain (under tight supervision from doctor).  I would take it AFTER testing and normalizing my blood sugars.  At night, if I had not eaten or my BG's were erratic, I would eat a snack before bedtime and have candy in the bed table drawer in easy reach in case I woke up.  I only had 2 scares when I did something stupid like taking a double dose of insulin - just was mentally prepared for such events and ate some candy and a sandwich to make sure it was counter-balanced.  I woke up with low blood sugars as always on Vicodin as the Vicodin wore off after about 3-4 hours and that is how long it usually took for a low blood sugar episode to develop at night (if it was going to do so).  So, I didn't have too many problems and during the day I woudl test alot to catch the low BGs but even so, I found that I often had a bounce - where BG went too low and bounced into the 300's.  That was normal while I was on severe diet and could not predict exercise levels at work, but hopefully you will have better luck AND your body can produce the liver reaction to bounce.  Most people with tooth pain prefer the pain to the normally small loss of control which is expected to last for only a very short time.