Painful tooth?!


Question:

Painful tooth?

Brief history - I didn't go to the dentist for 9 years (stupid - I know) and then around a year ago I developed a bad toothache and had to go. I had to have a root canal in that tooth, and I ended up getting fillings of varying sizes in pretty much all my other molars/premolars. Anyway, I finished with all the fillings etc about 4 months ago and everything was fine, but over the weekend I've started to get a toothache again and it's getting worse. It's in one of my back teeth on the bottom left, it's got a pretty big filling in it, that covers a lot of the top of the tooth, but it was done about 9 months ago and never gave me any problems until now.

Any ideas what the problem could be? I've made an appointment to see my dentist on Wednesday but I'd like to know what the likely problem is, and what he's likely to do.


Answers:

If it's a really big filling it will be deep and will be very close to the pulp and this can cause pain and sensitivity.
When a large cavity is being prepared, a lining of Zinc Oxide Eugenol is normally placed inside the cavity, this is to insulate the the pulp against conduction of heat/cold of non metallic fillings.
If the cavity has been lined inadequately this may result in the
death of the tooth and the severe pain your feeling maybe the nerve actually dying.
What the dentist maybe able to do is to remove the old filling and put a tempoary filling put in, Kalzinol is what we use in my surgery, this is a medicated dressing and will kill off any infection, it's normally placed inside for about a week and then you return to the surgery, if the pain has eased the dressing can be removed and the permament filling replaced, however if your still suffering pain RCT maybe your next step.
Hope this has been of some help




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