quote:
I would get another opinion if you are having concerns about your current dentist. Why were you told you neede a crown in the first place though? Crack found? Pain on chewing? Broken tooth?

So about 6 mos ago I was having my regular cleaning and the dentist noticed a crack in the back molar - #18.. right next to where my formerly extracted wisdom tooth used to be. They said there was a crack but to just be aware of it as it might stay like that for awhile. Sure enough, a few months later I was having some minor pain in it so I made an appointment to check it out.

The dentist said she didn't think it needed root canal work so we'd try just the crown to see if that would be enough. They took molds and made a crown, later installing it and sending me on my way.

Over the course of the next few hours, I was in considerable pain. The numbing wore off and it was agonizing. I called their office and they said to take 800mg of ibuprofen and max strength tylenol. It took the weekend plus a few days, but everything I could find on the web said that pain like this was normal and to expect at least 2 weeks to recover.

Now about 6 weeks post-procedure, the pain has slowly crept in and is reaching similar levels that I was in immediately following. The gum doesn't look red or inflamed so I don't know if it's an infection - unless it's somewhere obviously under the tooth.

Does this sound like something that could reasonably happen to any patient or is my dentist just an inexperienced dumbass?

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Posted by BassAssassin22

Member since Jun 2017

39 posts

Posted on 3/13/22 at 1:11 pm to Giantkiller

Your tooth has different levels of “health” as we will call it

Normal- self explanatory

Reversible pulpitis-minor to moderate pain but will go away after a relatively short prior of time. Usually seen after a procedure is performed

Irreversible pulpitis- tooth is on the verge of “dying” and has now become very painful. Spontaneous pain and can wake you up at night from hurting. This condition will not get better and a tooth will have to have a root canal.

Necrotic- tooth is no longer vital. This is when an infection can occur

Cracked teeth can be difficult to diagnose/treat. Often times a crown is all that’s needed. Other times depending on the crack/severity, a root canal and crown needs to be done. There is a special tool that can be used to help diagnose a crack that you put on various parts of the tooth and have a patient bite down and it can help isolate/diagnose a cracked area. If the tooth already had a filling, then a crack, now a new crown, that tooth has been worked on several times and the nerve may now be dying causing your pain. Imagine having repetitive surgeries on the same finger/knee/arm. I wouldn’t say your dentist did anything wrong but you likely need a root canal now. Hindsight is always 20/20 and it’s easy to say a root canal should have been done before. Having not done the exam or seen x-rays I can’t say what I would have done. I have seen teeth do a lot weird things over the years. Hope some of this information helped.

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