I had a very deep cavity in my very back molar on the lower right side. It was causing intermittent pain of varying intensity. My dentist recommended we try a sedative dressing. I had this done on Thursday afternoon. My dentist seemed very optimistic about the procedure, but did say “if we get lucky, this will work”. I was fine Thursday night, even after the freezing wore off. Friday, my jaw was quite sore, and opening my mouth was slow and painful. It did loosen up, but remained tender. I am unaccustomed to dental work of this nature, but it did not seem unusual that my jaw would be sore after the procedure.
I was awakened by what I perceive to be tooth pain at about 330 this morning. I took some ibuprofen to quell it. But my question is this: how long before the sedative dressing starts to work? Given what the dentist told me about how it works and the very little I have been able to gleen from the internet, I can’t imagine it is instant relief. The pain is not worse, just wondering how long before it “calms down”.
Yes, you are not my dentist and may in fact not be a dentist at all, and I will be calling his office on Monday. But for now, it is the middle of the night and the weekend seems suddenly very long.
dentist here. A sedative dressing is usually placed when there is a very deep( close to the nerve) cavity in order to try to eliminate pain and/or prevent a root canal. In my experience, 29 years, it works about 3/4ths of the time. Of course it varies greatly depending on the amount and depth of decay. Usually settles down in a day or two but may have temperature sensitivity especially to cold for quite a bit longer. After about 3-6 months we go back in and attempt a permanent restoration.
I’d be inclined to think the pain in the jaw was due to trauma from the injection v. the sedative fill. Ibuprofen and heat usually do the trick with that.
freezing huh? You from Canada? That is what they call it there. I’ve always liked the term. Sounds so different than being numb.
I am also okay with PMs although don’t always give fast responses.
I’m not sure where you’re from, but I’m in Wisconsin and ‘freezing’ is a pretty common term here for it as well. I even had a podiatrist say “I think we can fix this without freezing it” so it’s not totally exclusive to dental work.
