Lower jaw pain after upper tooth filling.

Hi there from a first time poster.

9 days ago I had a broken amalgum filling in my upper rear molar replaced with a white filling. The procedure took about 45 mins and during the drilling phase, I started to get a build up of pain in my lower jaw, which I initailly attributed to the cold water that is used during the drilling process.

5 days after the filling was done, I was still getting a lot of pain from both the tooth and my lower jaw. The tooth that was filled is extremely sensitive to the cold air test and the dentist suspects that there may be an infection in the tooth and has put me on a course of amoxycilin. (This seems plausable as there was a 10 day delay between my old filling breaking and being able to get it fixed).

However I am still experiencing terrible pain in my lower jaw. Yesterday, I went to the doctors for help and he prescribed me slow release Diclofenac and 30/500 co-codamol. This is helping but 4 hours after taking the co-codamol, the pain starts to return with a vengenace.

The densist has x-rayed the rear 3 teeth in my lower jaw (which is where the pain appears to be concentrated) and cannot see any problem, nor was I experiencing any real problem there previously (perhaps the odd twinge from the impacted wisdom tooth). One of the specialist at the clinic does not believe that it can be this wisdom tooth as it is well covered by gum and is lying deep in the jaw, far away from my molar.

Does anyone have any idea what may have triggered this acute pain in my lower jaw?

Many thanks in advance for any help or advice.

john

[Jerome Tsang, DDS]

Is there any difficulty in opening or closing of the mouth?  

I am guessing that it may be due to strain of the muscles being opened during the procedure.  45 mins is quite a bit of time to be open for, especially if its an upper back tooth and requires you to open as wide as you can.

[g3d]

I have no difficulty opening and closing my mouth. The pain feels like it is eminating  from inside or under the teeth.

[Jerome Tsang, DDS]

Has your doctor attempted to check the occlusion (bite) of the tooth to see if there's a problem that may be causing trauma from biting forces.

There may be a possibility of a fracture as well.  You may want to seek a second opinion from another dentist to get a fresh/new perspective.

[g3d]

thanks for the response Jerome, much appreciated.

The pain now appears to be receeding thanks to a combo of antibiotics and painkillers. I haven;t had to take any painkillers now for 24hrs now. I guess the tooth with the filling has a slight infection and the lower jaw became somewhat traumatised by the treatment and or/the infection.

The bite feels good, although the edges of the molar do feel a little sharp, as though they didn;t quite fill the tooth enough (with white, UV set filling).

Some time ago (and unrelated to this problem), I had a problem when the adjacent molar was filled with white filling. It appears that as this type of filling hardens it contracts and can pull the sides of the tooth in, causing intermittant pain for some time after the treatment.

The good news is that I have made it to our holiday cottage in Wales without being in agony so hopefully I can now enjoy a good weeks rest!

cheers.

[Jerome Tsang, DDS]

Good to hear.  Have a good trip.

[g3d]

just as an update in case someone googles this thread in the future...

Once the antiboitics wore off a week after taking the last dose, the pain came back with a mighty vengance.

I went to a private dentist (state NHS were out of ideas). They first replaced the white filling but that didn;t help. Next day, they opened up the nerve, plenty of blood (apparently) and an infected nerve.

They padded tooth with something that tasted a little like clove and put a temp filling on. 5 days later, still no pain. it's hard to convey the scale of the relief. I love my new dentist.

I'm off to have the roots removed on friday (by a RC specialist) and then a crown fitted.

I am still suprised that neither dentist could actually see the infection on the x-ray but there you go.