Dental Fillings

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was curious about your experiences with dental fillings.
My story: About 18 months ago I was in for a cleaning and checkup. I had no complaints about my teeth, but the dentist said that I had two small cavities (back left molars).

18 months went by, and I started feeling achiness in the back molars, and increased sensitivity to cold liquids. I went in for a cleaning and checkup (different dentist) who recommended that I get those two molars filled, and that I also had three other teeth that had some decay that should be treated.

I went back four days later and he worked on the two molars. He used the water laser system, and then filled with multiple layers of some tooth-colored composit material.

He said that those molars would still be sensitive to cold for the next day or so. He also said that I have four other teeth that had decay and that should be treated.

  1. It’s been over a week, and my back molars still ache at least as much as before I had the work done. Shouldn’t they feel like normal after this much time?

  2. Between my first and second visits, he increased the number of teeth that he said needed to be treated. This is raising red flags in my brain. Did he just miss a problem with one tooth during the first visit (at the time, he seemed to spend plenty of time looking in my mouth and on the full set of x-rays that were taken), or once he saw that I came back to get treated, he decided he could get a little more business from me? I’m alarmed by either scenario.

So, what is Your Humble Opinion?

2

I can only comment on your first question, but in my experience, it is common for a tooth that hurts from decay to continue to hurt for a while after its been wrked on. When I cavity gets so bad that you can feel it, it is already irritating the nerves. They will stay irritated for a few days afterwards, and sensitive to hot/cold for months (even years in some of my cases).

My qualifications in saying this are that I have at least 1 filling in nearly every tooth in my head, plus 2 root canals.

3

Apologies for excessive typos.

4

I once had to go back to the dentist four times before he would tell me exactly how many cavaties that I had. I ended up having six.

I’m suspicious that it might be more a business practice than anything else. If I knew right from the beginning that I had that many I would have asked that everything be done over two appointments rather than four. The more they get you in there though, the more they can bill you. It takes more novicane, dental tools and other things that can be combined.

My dentist used to also get on to me every visit for 9 years about taking out my wisdom teeth. “Your teeth are coming in straight, there’s plenty of room for them- you need to have them taken out.” I would have quit going to that dentist years ago except for the fact that I was 14 and it wasn’t really much of my choice.

If you feel your dentist isn’t being as honest as s/he should with you then I’d recommend looking for another dentist for your next check up.

As for the aching, it could be that the fillings weren’t polished down all the way. That’s happened to me before. It causes your teeth not to sit right and creates a sharp pain through that side, especially when you chew.

5

My wife’s a dental student so that makes me an expert, right?

Re: the tooth hurting,

I had the Mrs. replace an old filling in a molar that had cracked and I had some rotting underneath. That was a couple of months ago and it still hurts sometimes but less and less. She explained to me that 1) I shouldn’t be such a baby and 2) that the tubules in the pulp needed to regenerate and it would take a while for that to happen but it would get better.

Re: business.

hmmm. I won’t lie and tell you that there aren’t business minded dentists out there, in my experience though, they’re a cruel but ethical people and can generally be trusted with teeth (if not to sleep with their hygienists-a profession largely populated with attractive women).

There are however variations in people’s reading of what needs to be drilled vs what needs to be watched, it becomes art at this point. Some practitioners are more aggressive than others, it’s as simple as that.

By “treated” on the other 4 maybe you just have incipient cavities, which isn’t really a cavity, rather it is an observable brown spot on your tooth (in a crevasse) that will become a cavity soon if not treated. If he wants to sandblast it and put a sealant on it, that’s a good thing.

Diagnostically, you can tell it’s a cavity if the dentist sticks the tool in there and there’s a little “stick” when he/she pulls it out, like it’s catching on something, or it got stuck in a hole or something.

Ask for a mirror, tell them to show you what the problem is; don’t feel bad about inconveniencing him/her, they’re well paid. Ask alot of questions, get an education, they’re your teeth and you’ll have them longer than you’ll have any one dentist (hopefully).

For more assurance: go to a dental school for a checkup. You’ll have to pay out of pocket if they don’t take your insurance, although they might. Your appointment will take forever, but the student will have a teacher or two checking his/her work and they’ll be more prone to teaching you things about your teeth.

Get an electric toothbrush.

6

Disclaimer - IANAD. I do, however, work with one.

Decay that has been allowed to progress 18 months can be quite deep, which means any filling material will be placed closer to the pulp chamber. Bases and liners can help insulate the pulp, but the teeth may remain cold sensitive for years. Some adhesives are gentler to the pulp but are nor indicated for certain situations. You may have a rare sensitivity to the particular combination of materials used. As mentioned, there may also be a “high spot” on one or both fillings. This will create a pressure point. Finally, the tooth was under assault for a long time. The work done was an additional (necessary) trauma and the tooth may need time to calm down.

If the discomfort goes away almost immediately (when the cold stimulus is removed) it is generally nothing to worry about. This will diminish as time passes. If it lingers for a several minutes or longer, or occurs spontaneously, call your dentist. It may be alleviated by just adjusting the occlusal surface of the filling. Or the tooth may be going through its death throes. Either way, your dentist is the one to determine this.

As to your concerns about additional cavities found - not all decay will be obvious during an exam or show on x-rays. Shallow decay on proximal surfaces (between teeth, especially molars) may not be evident until work is started on the adjacent tooth, exposing that surface. Or your dentist may have spent additional time viewing the x-rays under magnification.

7

Wish my dentist had warned me that it’s normal for fillings to hurt at first. I stopped going to a particular dentist because I thought he was making things worse with the fillings he did. I guess I’ll go back to him now. :slight_smile:

8

Last Wednesday, the achiness in my molars became very severe, so I finally made an appointment with a different dentist.

By the way, some of you posters made the following accurate comments:

This new dentist said that the fillings were indeed built up too high. (He was also surprised that the filling wasn’t made deeper than it was). He did many iterations of having me grind on a piece of “paper”, and then used his polisher to sand down the fillings. He asked me if the first dentist had done this, and I told him that he didn’t spend near as much time as was being done now.

He said because of the trauma these teeth had been though in the past few weeks, that it would take several weeks before they felt normal.

I then asked him to check the rest of my teeth to see if I need any other fillings. He said that four other teeth had some pitting that should be watched at my next checkup. And I said “So you don’t think they need fillings now?” And he said that they didn’t. He said he could seal them if I wanted, but they didn’t warrent drilling and filling.

I’d like to conclude with a quote from ShadiRoxan: