Blah blah lay opinion blah blah no medical advice.
When I moved across town, I switched dentists. I’ve been to two cleanings there. After my second cleaning, the dentist found a soft spot in a filling on one of my molars–his little hook thing would stick a bit when he put it in there. He had me come in to remove and replace my filling. I had no issues with the tooth before then.
Afterwards, he said it might bother me for a while with cold things, and I shouldn’t bite down directly onto it until the morning. The filling happened after dinner, so that was no problem. But when I started using that tooth to chew anything harder than scrambled eggs, it hurt. I just chewed on the other side of my mouth. I waited two weeks, then went back to the dentist. He filed down the filling a bit, and told me it was a tiny filling so it shouldn’t be an issue. He said that if the pain continued, the tooth might be fractured, and the next step would be a crown.
It’s been a week, and it hasn’t gotten better. I’m not sure if I trust this guy, since I had no pain in that tooth before getting the filling replaced. Should I go to someone else? Is there a chance I might not need expensive, painful dental work? And am I correct in thinking that this guy screwed something up, or could this just have been a fluke?
I had a filling replaced - and a few days later, had a hot tooth. Bacteria can sometimes be trapped under the new filling and make their way down inside the tooth into the pulp cavity, where they cause an infection. Fixing that (in my case, at least) necessitated a root canal and crown. A cracked tooth can hurt, too.
Either way, I’d go back to the dentist to get your tooth looked at. You can always go back to your first dentist for a second opinion before having any further work done if you’re not sure you trust the new guy.
It could be a fluke. If you go back to this dentist and tell him it’s still a problem, and he doesn’t suggest a reasonable means of alleviating the problem, don’t get a second opinion, get a new dentist.
What’s weird about this tooth is that it doesn’t hurt when I bite down as hard as I can, nor does it hurt when I press on it. It only hurts when I’m using it for its intended purpose.
Teeth can be weird. My mouth is so messed up I can’t identify a specific tooth that hurts. But what you describe sounds like a loose or incomplete filling. Pressing down on it hard enough pushes the filling in to seal up the cavity and stop the pain. Normal chewing would be just enough to irritate the nerves. Or the nerve may be damaged enough that you need a root canal to make the pain go away. Or there could be a problem in the gums or bone under the tooth. Or the tooth may be slightly loose and enough pressure pushes it into place, while normal chewing causes it to shift and irritate the nerves somewhere.
When I read these threads about dental problems I think a lot of Dopers have really good teeth and are surprised at the nature of dental problems. My teeth (the few I have left) will hurt just from being overtired without even touching them. I expect all dental work to lead to more problems down the road somewhere. Even the good dentists aren’t magicians.
That’s how my abscessed tooth felt, FYI. It only hurt when actually chewing something. Just biting down hard didn’t cause any pain at all.
Note also, that having a root canal does not automatically mean you’ll need a crown. I have a few root canal teeth, some crowned and some not.
There’s nothing particularly painful about getting root canals and crowns (until you get the bill). They’re fairly long and tedious procedures that can leave your jaw sore just from having to hold your mouth wide open for about an hour, and all the grinding and scraping gets on your nerves. But in my experience, at least the xylocaine works as advertised.