Why are our teeth and fingernails so sensitive?

Teeth and fingernails (or the ';quick'; under the fingernails) are two of the most sensitive parts of the body. Yet neither are essential to survival. (The brain, which is the most important part of the body, is painless.) There is some logic to having sensitive fingers--if you put your hands in the fire, you won't be able to hunt for food. Consequently the offspring of the people with sensitive fingers would have survived in evolutionary terms. But what logic is there to a toothache? Wouldn't it be more rational to have painless teeth? (They could be replaced many times, as in the case of sharks.) BTW this isn't an argument for intelligent design, since toothache makes as little sense from the point of view of an intelligent designer as it seems to do from the point of view of evolution.Why are our teeth and fingernails so sensitive?
I had to replace a tooth several years ago with an artificial implant. It works fine - except I can't feel anything I'm eating with this (front) tooth.


Teeth need to be able to sense what they are biting %26amp; chewing.