To think you shouldn't have toothache after going to the dentist

[Mammajay]

Anyone else had this. Over a week ago my husband had the final fitting of a molar cap ( no pain in that tooth but a big chunk fell off). Since then he has very bad pain every time he eats or drinks which seems to be coming from acute sensitivity. The dentist saw him yesterday and said nothing is showing on the xray, but the pain seems to be from the tooth next to the capped tooth. If it doesn't improve, he might need root canal treatment which she doesn't do. Surely, something from the capping procedure has caused this or is it just a massive coincidence?

I have undergone a lot of dental work due to a congenital condition and have always found that after some of the more serious work i.e. cap/crown preparation and fitting etc, that I have toothache for a while afterwards. Sometimes into weeks and months. Your teeth are fairly delicate and all the pushing and shoving which dentists need to do can cause some aggro. My dentist opted not to crown some of my lower teeth specifically because she was concerned that the knock-on effect would be a need for root canal treatments afterwards.

So yes, the procedure likely caused his toothache, and its pretty standard that it would. It may settle down in a couple of weeks, or it may require root treatment. Your dentist didn't cause that, though. It would be most unfair to pin the blame on them, in my opinion.

Ah,thanks for that . I will tell him. I have two friends who stopped going to this dentist but I never asked why because it is also my dentist and I didn't want to worry about it!

From his symptoms it sounds like the tooth might be cracked. That's very hard to see on the x-ray as that's a two dimensional image and the crack might only be visible from a different angle.

Could the capping procedure have cracked the tooth next to it?

No, teeth crack primarily from grinding your teeth. Lots of people do this while they sleep.

Cap preparation is fairly traumatic for a tooth/teeth. They often use the electronic gizmos to shape the tooth being prepped, and this is bound to have impact on the surrounding teeth due to the vibrations being put into such a small surface are. I genuinely wouldn't be concerned about the toothache at this point unless its really incredibly painful and would put it down to trauma from the procedure. As mentioned, after my recent crown procedures, I had a moral which was sensitive and painful when biting down for about 6-8 weeks. I did raise it with my dentist and she said that if it persisted past the 4-6 month point she would review for root treatment. Thankfully it did indeed pass and I've had no further bother.
I always think of teeth as being a little melodramatic

I had a molar that was sensitive silly autocorrect

I had a crown like that a month before Christmas. It is still "settling down" - it does improve week-on-week.

It was incredibly heat/cold sensitive at first. I had to take Ibuprofen by early evening most days and I could not bite on it.

It is now less sensitive and I can bite on soft things!

I don't know if it will become just like any other tooth, but I've been advised to give it time and see.

I had an onlay put on yesterday afternoon. When the injection wore off blimey did it hurt! I wandered around the house all evening feeling betrayed by the dentist and generally miserable. I didn't dare bite on it. This morning it's much better and just has a bit of an ache. I think it's right, the teeth have to have time to recover.

I am going to show dh this. I love the collective knowledge of mumsnet.

I always have trouble...I am being very virtuous atm as I lost a filling and it took a corner of tooth with it just before christmas, so that was an emergency appointment for a BIG filling and tbh it's still twanging with cold drinks, but less than it was

I think the dentist realises she has a small window to get me back in the chair, so I have also had a check up, a scale and polish, and x rays and they showed a small filling required in a wisdom tooth so I am back for that at the end of the week

Dh reckons she'll try to flog me braces next :o

But just to sum up...any dental stuff always seem to give me bother for a good few weeks, until I am on the point of going back to complain and then it settles

My gums hurt for two weeks after seeing the hygienist! I had a filling last year and it was sore for a couple of weeks.