Disclaimer: not seeking medical advice, just personal experience advice.
Last week one of my upper molars in the very back semi-collapsed. I think a 35-year old filling disintegrated and took out half of the tooth; I can feel a kind of volcano-shaped topography with my tongue.
I have some important job interviews happening over the next two weeks and don’t want to get started with extraction/root canal/crown work etc until these events are over. The tooth and surrounding area do not hurt at all and I’ve been gargling with salt water a few times a day and carefully brushing the area to cut down on the risk of infection.
Will I be okay for a few weeks? I’ve never had any tooth trauma before and am uneducated in this area . . .
Well put it this way, if you wait and the night before your biggest interview comes and that tooth decides to get a nasty infection…you’ll wish you got it fixed as soon as possible.
I’d bite the bullet - or the crown as it were - and get it fixed. I’d hate to be in unanticipated pain the day of a big interview.
I would try to squeeze in an appointment to the dentist as soon as possible to find out what is involved in getting it fixed. After that you could see if you have any time conflicts and possibly reschedule an interview.
I’ve had several broken teeth for several years with no adverse effects other than pain. IMO, you’re probably safe for the next few weeks, but you do wanna get it taken care of ASAP. Teeth can, and do, get infected very easily. Keep it clean and gargle with a mouthwash that helps keep germs down, is my non-professional opinion.
I’ve been doing that for…oh, seven or eight years. Damn wisdom teeth keep breaking my other teeth open.
I’ve been sitting on a broken tooth (well, not sitting on it exactly - I’m not that flexible!) for about 6 months. Went in yesterday, and got my first exam/cleaning in 14 years (shut up, I KNOW, I KNOW!), and we start the root canal/post/capping procedure in two weeks. The two week delay was due to HIS schedule, not mine, and he didn’t seem overly worried about it or even try to fit me in an “emergency” slot or anything.
Yeah, it’s not going to get better, it can only get worse and more expensive to fix, but a broken tooth is rarely an emergency. In my NOT medical opinion, of course.
I once had a molar/filling break a few days before I was to leave the country for a few weeks. I was afraid the “exposed innards” of the tooth would completely rot in a week or so, the infection would spread to my blood and kill me. (Well, OK, I didn’t think ALL of that, but I was concerned about the decay worsening.)
So I went to my friendly dental school’s emergency department, they x-rayed it, said that yes, there is decay and it would need to be filled or crowned, but they could simply put a temporary cover on it (not a cap or a filling, but just some tooth-colored enamelly stuff) with no cleaning or drilling and said I would be good to go for an indefinite amount of time (not TOO indefinite, mind you—it has to be cleaned out SOMETIME).
I asked if the decay and bacteria would spread underneath the temporary cover. They told me that since the bacteria causing the decay is anaerobic it couldn’t harm the tooth without oxygen. (wait… I guess maybe that would be aerobic).
**Anyway-- the point is-- in my case, which sounds similar to yours, I was able to get by with a simple, cheap, fast, temporary cover. Oh! I had a good deal of pain with mine too, and it went away after they covered it. 'Cause there was no more active rotting, I guess.
This is only anecdotal evidence from a layperson. I am not a dentist, nor would I ever want to be. HOW can they look in those rotting mouths all day long??? Yechhh!**
I have two back molars which are probably 75% gone. It’s been this way for probably 12 years. I know I ought to do something about, but I hate going to the dentist, so I wuss out. I don’t experience any adverse effects.
Thanks for the advices . . . I’m going to call and make an appointment for next month and keep a close eye on any pain or infection. My interviews are big deal fly-across-the-country kind of things, so I hope this nasty old molar stays dormant.
Nothing like losing a tooth to make one feel decrepit. I turned 40 two weeks ago and this was not a nice gift!
