Hi. Today I had an old filling removed from a lower moler. The tooth also has a small crack in the rear of the tooth. Anyway, the old silver amalgam filling was grinded out. The old filling was very large, as the dentist mentioned to me. So he finished grinding it out. He mentioned seeing the crack. He then put in a temporary filling. It is very white in color. So I scheduled an appointment for 3 weeks from now. But now that the anesthetic has worn off, the tooth is so sensitive to pressure that I cannot make contact between my upper and lower tooth without piercing pain. It doesn t hurt badly at rest. But only when biting or under pressure. Is this normal for a temporary filling? Thanks!
Hello and thank you for your question. This typically is not normal for a temporary filling.  This may indicate that the bite is too high on the restoration and will need to be reduced to help remove the irritation.  Depending on the crack, what happens with this is when you bite down you open the crack which changes the pressure around the nerve, when you let go, it closes and changes the pressure again, this leads to pain in the nerve.  This may indicate that the crack has entered into the pulp requiring a root canal, or it causes enough irritation to the pulp that the dentist needs to grind the tooth until the crack goes away. I have worked on many patients with cracks in their teeth and the pain goes away once its Chat Doctor.  Other times it goes right into the pulp and needs to have a root canal.  In other cases the crack is so deep that the tooth is non-restorable and needed to be extracted.  Hang in there. Best Wishes