You’ve seen him dab Orajel on a back tooth. You’ve noticed he chews on one side. Ask him about it and you get the same answer every time: it doesn’t bother me.
We hear about this husband a lot, usually from his wife, and usually after a tooth has already made the decision for him. Here’s what’s going on in his mouth, why “it doesn’t bother me” isn’t the reassurance it sounds like, and what actually gets a reluctant man into the chair.
Key points
- Men are less likely than women to see a dentist in a given year.
- A tooth that stops hurting hasn’t always healed. Sometimes the nerve has died.
- Orajel is fine to get through a night. A tooth that needs it week after week needs a dentist.
- Medicare doesn’t cover routine dental care, and work coverage often ends at retirement.
- Make it about one tooth, skip the lecture, and let him call and ask first.
He’s not the only one
Staying away is more common in men. In 2025, about 63% of American men had a dental exam or cleaning in the past year, compared with about 70% of women, and the gap has shown up year after year.
of US men had a dental exam or cleaning in the past year (2025). CDC data →
of US women did, the same year. CDC data →
of front teeth whose nerve had died, in one study of 2,202 root canals, had no history of pain that came on by itself or lingered. Study →
In national exam data, men also had fewer dental visits than women and were more often told they needed urgent dental care.
National Center for Health Statistics, Interactive Summary Health Statistics for Adults, National Health Interview Survey 2025: dental exam or cleaning in the past 12 months, men 63.0%, women 69.6%. Su S, Lipsky MS, Licari FW, Hung M. Comparing oral health behaviours of men and women in the United States. J Dent. 2022;122:104157. PubMed
“It doesn’t bother me” is the problem
Decay and gum disease are quiet for most of their lives. A cavity doesn’t hurt until it’s deep. Gum disease rarely hurts at all, even while it takes the bone that holds the teeth in. By the time a back tooth needs something from the medicine cabinet, it has usually been working on it for a long while.
And a tooth that stops hurting hasn’t always gotten better. The American Association of Endodontists uses exactly that story as a teaching case: a lower molar that was sensitive to cold and sweets for a few months, then quieted down. The nerve had died, and the tooth needed a root canal. Teeth can also die with little warning at all. In one study of 2,202 upper front teeth treated with root canals, about 40% of the teeth whose nerve had died had no history of pain that came on by itself or lingered, and that quiet course was more common in patients over 53. Signs you may need a root canal.
American Association of Endodontists. Endodontic Diagnosis. Endodontics: Colleagues for Excellence, Fall 2013. Michaelson PL, Holland GR. Is pulpitis painful? Int Endod J. 2002;35:829-32. PubMed
What the Orajel is telling you
A numbing gel like Orajel is fine to get through a bad night. That’s what it’s for. It numbs the surface for a little while, and it does nothing about whatever is going on inside the tooth. The label itself says not to use it for more than 7 days unless a dentist or doctor tells you to.
So if he’s reaching for it on the same tooth week after week, the gel isn’t the problem. The tooth is. Something in there is bad enough to hurt, and it has been that way long enough for him to build a habit around it. Tooth pain that comes and goes, or hurts at night.
Orajel 4X Medicated Toothache & Gum Gel, Drug Facts label, DailyMed (National Library of Medicine). The label also warns to stop and get medical help right away for pale, gray or blue skin, headache, a racing heart or shortness of breath, signs of a rare but serious reaction to benzocaine.
Where this usually ends
Without a plan, it tends to go the same way. A tooth flares up on a weekend. He ends up wherever can see him fastest, and the tooth comes out, because that’s the quickest fix for pain. A few months or years later, it’s the next one.
Each back tooth that goes makes chewing a little harder, and the ones left take more of the load. People adapt so gradually that they don’t notice they’ve stopped ordering steak. The research on chewing and swallowing is worth knowing about too: older adults with fewer teeth are more likely to develop swallowing problems, and poor or missing teeth come up again and again in studies of choking. Can missing teeth raise your risk of choking?
An emergency visit is built to stop the pain in one tooth. It isn’t built to tell you which tooth is next. Emergency care vs. a treatment plan →
Why right after retirement is the time
If he had dental insurance through work, it may have ended when the job did. Medicare is plain about this: in most cases it doesn’t cover routine cleanings, fillings, extractions, dentures or implants. A large US study of adults over 50 found that people were likely to lose dental coverage when they retired, and that those who lost it were more likely to stop going to the dentist. Fixing your teeth on a fixed income covers the real options when the budget changes.
Medicare.gov, Dental services. Manski RJ, Moeller JF, Chen H, St Clair PA. Dental care coverage transitions. Am J Manag Care. 2009;15:729-35. PubMed Manski RJ, Moeller JF, St Clair PA, Schimmel J. The influence of changes in dental care coverage on dental care utilization among retirees and near-retirees in the United States, 2004-2006. Am J Public Health. 2011;101:1882-91. PubMed
Retirement also brings the one thing a working man rarely had: time. Treatment can be spread out and planned instead of squeezed in around a crisis. And the teeth he keeps at sixty are the ones he’ll be eating with at eighty.
What actually gets him in
You may matter more here than you think. In one study from Japan, among adults over 40 with a problem in their mouth, unmarried men were more likely than married men to get no dental treatment for it, 40% compared with 29%. Among women, being married made no real difference. It’s one study and it shows a link, not proof, but it fits what we see.
Inoue Y, Zaitsu T, Oshiro A, Ishimaru M. Association of marital status and access to dental care among the Japanese population: a cross-sectional study. BMC Oral Health. 2022;22:278. PubMed
What tends to work
- Make it about one tooth. “Get the Orajel tooth looked at” is easier to say yes to than “go to the dentist.” Once he’s here, we look at everything, but the door he walks through can be small.
- Skip the lecture. Most men who have stayed away already feel a little embarrassed about it. Here’s what I tell people who apologize: “We can’t go back in time. We can only look to the future.” Nobody here keeps score.
- Let him call and just ask. He doesn’t have to schedule anything to start. Our team will answer his questions on the phone without pushing him onto the schedule.
- Tell him it starts with a conversation. His first visit begins with him sitting down with me and telling me what’s going on, before anyone takes an X-ray.
- Give him the number before the next flare-up. It’s 702-734-0776, the same number day or night. Put it in his phone now, so if the tooth wakes him up on a Saturday, he knows who to call. What to do for a toothache tonight.
What his first visit is like
We talk first. Then a full set of records, an exam of his whole mouth, not just the tooth that hurts, and then we go through it together, with the photos in front of him. Often what we find is easier than he fears: gum inflammation and early gum disease are the easy ones. Sometimes it isn’t, and then the sooner we look, the more options he keeps. Haven’t been to a dentist in years? Start here.
Call 702-734-0776, or tell us what’s going on. He’s welcome to call himself, and so are you.
General education, and not a substitute for an exam.