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So my dentist put a temp crown on my tooth on 12/8 and the permanent crown on 12/23. When they seated the perm crown, the pain was so severe that it took two hours, two shots of novocaine, and nitrous. This is my sixth crown but I've never had an experience like that.
The crown has not stopped hurting. It's sensitive to cold, but every once in a while it'll just ache. Sometimes (like now) the pain gets so bad that the tooth throbs and I feel the pain in my cheek, temple, and the eye socket on the same side as the tooth.
I've had this feeling before and when I did, I had to have an emergency root canal.
I went back to the dentist last week for her to have another look at the crown. I asked her yet again to check my x-rays to see if a root canal was needed. She waved off my concerns like she did the previous two visits (and a few phone calls) and said that the tooth needed time to "settle down" and that she had to drill "a lot" and that she probably "got close to a nerve and inflamed it." ETA: She also blames the fact that I grind my teeth. I don't actually grind much; I do suck my teeth (hard to explain).
Why did you need the crown in the first place? An inflamed nerve shouldn't still be inflamed almost weeks after the fact. And if there was inflammation, a course of antibiotics would have cleared it up.
The sensitivity *sounds* like the crown isn't sitting properly, and the ground-down tooth is exposed somewhere between the gum and the edge of the crown. That isn't necessarily the case, but it is definitely possible. You might even ask the hygienist to take a look with her probe and see if *possibly* there's a tiny itty bit of cement wedged between the gumline and the crown, that's causing the tiniest bit of a gap. Even that little is enough to cause pain, and picking it out with the probe could be enough to get the crown settled perfectly.
The kind of pain you're describing is not normal. If the dentist is dismissing your concern, get a second opinion. If your dentist is usually otherwise spot-on and satisfactory, then call her again, tell her it still is causing problems, and you want it diagnosed and resolved ASAP.
Just be prepared for the possibility that you really do need a root canal, OR an extraction.
Why did you need the crown in the first place? An inflamed nerve shouldn't still be inflamed almost weeks after the fact. And if there was inflammation, a course of antibiotics would have cleared it up.
The sensitivity *sounds* like the crown isn't sitting properly, and the ground-down tooth is exposed somewhere between the gum and the edge of the crown. That isn't necessarily the case, but it is definitely possible. You might even ask the hygienist to take a look with her probe and see if *possibly* there's a tiny itty bit of cement wedged between the gumline and the crown, that's causing the tiniest bit of a gap. Even that little is enough to cause pain, and picking it out with the probe could be enough to get the crown settled perfectly.
The kind of pain you're describing is not normal. If the dentist is dismissing your concern, get a second opinion. If your dentist is usually otherwise spot-on and satisfactory, then call her again, tell her it still is causing problems, and you want it diagnosed and resolved ASAP.
Just be prepared for the possibility that you really do need a root canal, OR an extraction.
This would be my third root canal, so nothing I haven't been through before. The thing that sucks most about root canals, frankly, is paying for them. The last one I had was so easy that I fell asleep during the procedure. It was a nice nap, honestly. Plus I was high as hell on nitrous. I almost enjoyed it. ALMOST.
But then I had to pay. Boooooooo, that sucked.
The dentist and hygienist swear that the crown is seated perfectly and that there's no gobs of cement or gap.
The dentist is new; she bought my old dentist's (let's call her Dr. A) practice when Dr. A retired. Most of Dr. A's old staff is gone except one hygienist, who hasn't looked at my teeth in two years. (Other hygienists have worked on me.) I figured since new dentist (Dr. B) had Dr. A's patient files and I'd been Dr. A's patient for about five years and for all my crowns and root canals, it'd be a good idea to at least try Dr. B first before shopping for a new dentist.
I hate Dr. B. I really hate her. And her new staff. They're so pissy and snotty.
Dr. B said to give the crown 2 months from the time she seated the temp to "settle down" and if it's not better by then, get in touch. Ugh. I can tell it's going to be a battle if I do need a root canal and a brand-new crown. Dr. A once had to replace a crown for free when I had to have a root canal less than six months later on that same tooth. She didn't quibble at all; in fact, she apologized!
I am the poster child for root canals so I can say without hesitancy, your pain is caused by the root. You should have had a root canal done before having that crown placed. What kind of dentist would do such a thing, to begin with? He or she should be reported to the ADA. That is substandard work.
I'm sorry you're in pain but you have a bigger problem than that. If you let that thing go, infection will set in and you will end up having surgery on your jaw. Dental infections are serious stuff, only people don't realize it until it happens to them.
There are times when someone gets a crown without a root canal, HereonMars, and we don't know the background of BigGeek's situation.
If you chip a tooth, the typical solution is to get it crowned (aka "capped").
I had a bridge, and then needed the anchor tooth given a root-canal. Rather than risking damage to the other teeth by yanking the entire bridge off for this, the dentist split up the bridge into separate crowns. The empty space got an implant and crown. The root canal tooth got a new crown. The other teeth were left intact, already ground down with the existing crowns on them re-shaped to not have any sharp edges. There was nothing wrong with those teeth. They simply had to be ground down to hold the crowns that had been bridged to each other when I had the bridge done in the first place.
That makes sense, Anonchick. Why do a whole root canal on a chipped tooth? I was never lucky enough to have only a chipped tooth that needed repair. Thank you for clarifying that. If the OP is still experiencing pain and throbbing, it sure sounds like the root is in trouble and in this particular case, a root canal was warranted.
If I go in there again before February 8th, all the dentist is going to do is say what she's already said before; so I'm going to wait and see how it goes. If the pain gets excruciating, I'll call her; but for now, the intense pain is intermittent. I can go a couple of days without feeling any discomfort, then it starts up. So far haven't found a trigger for it.
Rule out the obvious: popcorn kernels is the #1 culprit. Those slippery little baisteges would worm their way under the doors of Ft. Knox if they thought there might be a human gumline beneath them. Once they do, all aych ee double-hockey-sticks will break loose. Then rule out chicken bone or fish bone splinters, tiny little nut shell remnants, or even just having one bristle on your toothbrush sticking out funny and hitting that spot all the time and irritating it.
If any of those things are going on, they'll irritate it for as short a period as 15-20 minutes after they wedged themselves under the gumline, til a couple days later when they finally wriggle themselves back out again.
My tooth, with its temporary cap aches sometimes when I'm in bed. My dentist states the same thing said on this thread. What knocks the pain out for me surprisingly was I took a swig of water and swished around on my good side of my mouth, warming the water up a bit and then rolling the water over the side where the achy tooth is and swish hard. For some reason it seems to work every time even after I brush before bedtime.
Add a bit of salt to that warm salt water. It's worked for decades.
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Thank you for clarifying that. If the OP is still experiencing pain and throbbing, it sure sounds like the root is in trouble and in this particular case, a root canal was warranted.
