אחרי זה רופא השיניים שאל אם גם החניכיים שלי כואבות.

אחרי זה means after that or afterwards.

Literally, אחרי is after and זה is this/that. In everyday Hebrew, אחרי זה is a very common way to move the story forward, like saying then or after that in English.

So the sentence starts by setting the time frame: first one thing happened, and after that the dentist asked a question.

Because Hebrew often uses a construct chain (called סמיכות) instead of of.

So:

• רופא שיניים = a dentist
  literally: doctor of teeth
• רופא השיניים = the dentist
  literally: doctor of the teeth

In this structure, the first noun usually does not take ה־, even when the whole phrase is definite. The definiteness is shown on the second noun.

So:

• רופא שיניים = a dentist
• רופא השיניים = the dentist

This is a very common Hebrew pattern.

Here אם means if/whether and introduces an indirect yes/no question.

So:

• שאל = asked
• שאל אם... = asked if / asked whether...

In this sentence, the dentist is not asking a direct question like Do your gums also hurt?
Instead, the sentence reports the question indirectly:

• The dentist asked whether my gums also hurt

This is one of the most common uses of אם in Hebrew.

No. It can mean either:

• if in a conditional sentence
• whether/if in an indirect question

Here it means whether.

Compare:

• אם ירד גשם, נישאר בבית = If it rains, we’ll stay home
• הוא שאל אם ירד גשם = He asked whether it rained / if it was raining

So in your sentence, אם is not conditional. It is introducing what the dentist asked.

גם means also / too.

In this sentence:

• אם גם החניכיים שלי כואבות = whether my gums also hurt

Placing גם before החניכיים שלי shows that the gums are being added to something already mentioned. In other words, something else was already hurting, and now the dentist is asking whether the gums hurt too.

Hebrew often puts גם right before the word or phrase it is focusing on.

Because Hebrew commonly uses the article ה־ together with a noun + an independent possessive like שלי.

So:

• החניכיים שלי = my gums
• literally: the gums of mine

This is a normal Hebrew structure. English does not use the with my, but Hebrew often does in this kind of phrase.

With body parts especially, this pattern is very common and natural:

• הראש שלי = my head
• היד שלי = my hand
• העיניים שלי = my eyes

Because in Hebrew, independent possessives usually come after the noun.

So Hebrew says:

• החניכיים שלי
  literally: the gums my / the gums of mine

where English says:

• my gums

This is a basic difference between the two languages. Hebrew does have possessive suffixes in some situations, but with ordinary nouns, especially in everyday speech, noun + שלי / שלך / שלו is very common.

Because it agrees with החניכיים, which is treated as a feminine plural noun.

So:

• החניכיים = the gums
• כואבות = hurt / are painful, feminine plural

Hebrew adjectives and participle-like forms usually agree with the noun in gender and number.

Compare:

• השן כואבת = the tooth hurts
  singular feminine
• השיניים כואבות = the teeth hurt
  plural feminine
• החניכיים כואבות = the gums hurt
  plural feminine

It looks like the dual ending, and historically it is related to that pattern, but in modern Hebrew many nouns ending in ־יים are simply treated as regular plural nouns for agreement purposes.

So even though חניכיים ends in ־יים, it still takes plural agreement:

• החניכיים כואבות

The important thing for a learner is: do not assume that every ־יים noun behaves in a special way in the sentence. You still need to learn its actual gender and agreement pattern. Here, חניכיים takes feminine plural agreement.

In sentences like this, it is best to think of כואב / כואבת / כואבים / כואבות as a present-tense form meaning hurts / painful / aching.

Hebrew present-tense forms often behave a bit like adjectives and a bit like verbs. That is why they change for gender and number:

• כואב = masculine singular
• כואבת = feminine singular
• כואבים = masculine plural
• כואבות = feminine plural

So החניכיים שלי כואבות means my gums hurt or my gums are aching.

There is no separate word for are in the present tense here, so Hebrew simply says:

• החניכיים שלי כואבות not something equivalent to are hurting with a separate are.

Hebrew word order is flexible, and time expressions are very often placed at the beginning of the sentence.

So:

• אחרי זה רופא השיניים שאל...

is a very natural way to say:

• After that, the dentist asked...

Starting with אחרי זה helps organize the story and show sequence. It is similar to beginning an English sentence with Then or After that.

The clause after אם is:

• גם החניכיים שלי כואבות

Its basic structure is:

• גם = also
• החניכיים שלי = my gums
• כואבות = hurt

So literally it is something like:

• whether also my gums hurt

A more natural English rendering is:

• whether my gums also hurt

This difference is just normal word-order variation between Hebrew and English.