how to express the meaning "治標不治本"?

Sorry, Anon, I'm facing 5 neat little squares...

For example: I have a bad tooth, it hurts me often, I took many medicines, they only help for a while, and soon, My toothache came back to me again. So I went to a dentist, and had it pulled out. and I ridded of my toothache probelm forever.

So it means some methods (like taking medicines) will only not solve the problem forever, you have to find another (like pulling out the tooth) so

An alternative?

No, I feel frustrated by my poor english:-(

When a probelm occurs, there may be different ways to slove the probelm, some of them can solve the problem quite effectively, some can only improve the situation, or to make the superficial look better. If someone use the latter method to deal with a problem. we would say it can not solve the problem, it's "?????".

Don't be, it's hard to explain!

Wait till a native sees the post, it's safer.

How about "a makeshift solution"?

Hly, I believe the expression you are looking for is:
Fix the root cause of a problem instead of merely treating the symptom.

For example, let say you are on a boat which has sprung a leak. The boat is starting to fill up with water and beginning to sink. You can 'treat the symptom' by bailing water but that's not fixing the real problem. To 'fix the r

Thank you, Danyoo.

Thank you, the explanation is very clear.^^