Question:
About 4 weeks ago, I got a crown to replace an old, big and deep, filling
that had separated from the tooth) . The bite with the temporary crown was
not perfect, so I was experiencing some pain when chewing. After informing
my dentist of this, he decided to temporarily cement the permanent crown to
make sure the pain went away. After having the bite adjusted (and the bite
feels really good, BTW) I went home. Now it is 4 weeks later and if I chew
anything harder than a donut, the tooth hurts. It's not earth shattering
pain, but it's enough of a twinge (quasi-electric shock feeling) to keep me
from chewing on that tooth. I am afraid that I will need a root canal to
gain back the use of that side of my mouth. Are there other options?
Answer:
It is quite possible that the nerve of the tooth had already been compromised by the presence of the old, big, and deep filling, and
the cutting down of the tooth to place the crown was the final straw for that nerve. Since the crown is in temporarily, your dentist
should be able to evaluate the tooth and give you a better answer.
Root canal treatment may very well be indicated. I suspect the dentist thought this may be a possibility, which is why the crown was
not permanently placed.
You can safely ignore the above message from someone who calls
himself/herself "jan". On dental subjects, it seems best to listen to the
dentists and ignore the retired day care workers. Hell; ignore ME if you
want to, but listen to the dentists. And also ignore what is sure to follow
from "jan"; I will.
In my (very limited) experience four weeks is not a particularly long time to
wait while a tooth "makes up its mind". Give it time to either get worse or
improve, and in the meanwhile, you will likely get some genuine DMD-type
advise right here.
Here is a decent guy with a pretty common question. Jan Drew hijacks
the thread to tell him the dentists are going to try to poison him
with root canal therapy!
The problem is that the source of your unfavorable symptoms needs to be
identified, so the best advice I can give you is to report fully all of your
symptoms to your dentist. He alone (or perhaps in consultation with an
endodontist) can advise you...based on what the problem is. A root canal
may or may not be indicated or advisable. If you lose the tooth, it can be
replaced, but it's almost always preferable to save it.
Now, I know another person named Jan Drew "answered" your post with some
links to sites proclaiming the dangers or root canal. Know that any advice
from her can and should be ignored. She's a retired children's daycare
center owner with an agenda...nothing more. Millions upon millions of root
canal procedures have been safely employed to save teeth from extraction. I
wouldn't have my adolescent daughter's tooth extracted if it could be saved
by a root canal, and I've forgotten 100 times more about dentistry than Jan
Drew has ever known.
