Remember, your dentists didn't put the decay in your mouths, you did by eating sugar and not cleaning properly. If you choose to take the riskier option of white fillings because you are vain then you have to put up with the chance of sensitivity. If you don't go back for your fillings then you will only be on here with toothache in a few months time.

If you had had an operation by a doctor in a hospital and it hurt for a few days, you wouldn't think anything of it would you? A dental filling is exactly the same.

Don't pass the blame onto your dentist because you can't look after yourself properly.

Actually gooders, the dentist told me that there would've been no way for me to prevent the cavities that I did get, they said that there are crevices in my teeth that are so small that no matter how much I brushed there was no way for the toothbrush to get into it to clean it. I brush 3x a day, and floss every night. So I think you are being a little presumptuous in thinking that everyones cavities are from not brushing properly. I think that being 26 and this being my first cavities is pretty good.

Also, my dentist told me i'd be better off with the composite's because they don't have to drill as much as they do with the amalgam, so its not vanity that had me choose the white fillings, it was by my dentists suggestion.

Lucy-btw I am on day 4 and my teeth now feel much better

Hello everyone!

I totally understand where you are coming from! I had my fillings replaced 4 days ago (with the composit I did have the silver!) and they are still sensitive!!! I am hoping that the pain will go away in a few weeks. It isn't a like a tooth ache kind of pain its more like the pressure sensitivity kind when you bite down! I never had the composit on my teeth and if they some how don't get better I know my dentist will fix it for free! They actually didn't even charge me to refill them! I had them done last year and they replaced them because 2 had more decay on it and the 3rd one was just a new filling.... I guess if they weren't fixing their mistakes for free I would be so pissed! I'm wishing you all the best of luck! I am so sorry for what you all are going through!!! I will keep you posted on my fillings and let you know if the pain goes away or not! Oh yea when they refilled those cavities they also took out my wisdom teeth so I am in a lot of pain! I won't be able to tell how bad these refills are until my gums where my wisdom teeth were heal! I so promise to keep you posted on my fillings! Let you know if it goes away! I have this page bookmarked!! :) I will post again real soon!

Gooders: people are venting here and seeing if people have the same problems... If they blame their dentist it isn't of your concern! (get over it and find something else to do with your time than to start something here)

snoop: well handled on the situation! Good job on the cavity thing!(wish mine was just 1) yea I have the same problem with my teeth being easy to have a cavity! But I do the same as you 3 times a day and floss once a day! So see even with all that you can still get some!

Reeses- good luck with all that, I remember it took forever before my gums went back to normal after my wisdom teeth. Let me tell you, the composite will feel better. At least they did for me, it took awhile, you know what helped me though, was using sensitive teeth toothpaste. When I got 2 more fillings on the other side, they were fine, and not sensitive at all. I have to go today to get my bite fixed though. I had so much novocaine that I couldn't feel if my bite was ok. But I wish you luck!

Snoop- thanks so much for the idea of the toothpaste! I am going to go get it today to see if it helps! I appreciate your concern and thanks for sharing that with me!

Snoop- it did take some sensitivity away but not all(the sensitive toothpaste), but still taking some away is better than none!

Hi all. I am, too, victim of a dentist. One year ago I went to him to fill my teeth, two of them, before that I haven't any tooth problems that time it was done "normally" and pain passed some month after. But this second time I went in feb. 2006 just for a check, I hadn't any problems, and he advised me to fill up 2 more teeth as there were problems (though I didn't feel myself) and after that I had dull pains when chewing, the first tooth pain passed after 3 months and the second one is still annoying me. Though I feel optimistic about it, but my advice is never go to any doctor for just checking, if it is not hurting at all. They will certainly find something, and try to make some money.

Hey well I got my composite filling replaced with a silver one and it feels a lot better so far...

Reading this thread has really worried me...

Last august, I went to a new dentist for a routine cleaning, and found that I had -four- cavities. They were both in my bottom molars, two on each side, and right next to each other between two teeth. So I had the procedure done, wildly overpriced. I think it was around $1200 for composites.

I had very little discomfort and the only problem I had was that it was difficult to floss between the teeth on the left side. Late winter of this year, I was attempting to floss again and the fillings just... -popped out-. I'd moved since having the procedure, so I couldn't go back, and being in college, I really didn't have a chance to make an appointment with anyone or find a new dentist. I probably would have tried anyhow, but I had no idea which dentists were on our insurance plan, so I had to rely on my parents to do it (who decided to take a few months to do so.) so during all this time I had a gaping hole between the teeth, and after a few months they started to hurt just a little bit when I ate sweets.

I finally started with another dentist last week (and intuition tells me that they don't know what they're doing...), and they told me that beside those two fillings that need to be fixed, my old dentist didn't get rid of all the decay on my right side, so that one had to be replaced, too. So last thursday they replaced the two on the left with composites again, and afterward they ached, but it felt normal. After a few days it died down, but would flare up much more than before whenever I ate or brushed my teeth. Now they hurt constantly, so i've got a really bad headache from it, too. I even had the right side fixed yesterday, and it already barely hurts on that side at all, which my left is driving me crazy.

They said that I might need a root canal, which doesn't make much sense since it felt fine before they filled it. I'm really worried now that I might have this pain for months, especially since I don't want to go back to them if I can't help it.

Sounds like they should of gave you some desensitized stuff before refilling your filling. They had to put it on my tooth that felt like a toothache from refilling a filling... My nerve was going wacky or something. As for the fillings that had to be replaced because of more decay. They refilled mine because of that reason... It is normal to have to replace them for this reason. Just have to keep brushing! I am brushing mine anywhere from 3-5 times a day because I have no choice my teeth are easily proned to cavities...But if you are in pain I would go back and get it refilled... The composite fillings don't do well with some of my teeth so I replaced them with the silver and ever since I did that I felt fine. Make sure you floss everyday it will help reduce cavities.. Good luck and give us updates! :?

About two months ago I had 4 molar silver fillings replaced with white/composite fillings. My silver fillings were over twenty years old, and I had insurance at the time , so I thought what the heck. (i had zero problems with my silver fillings). I was not told by my dentist any of the problems that could occur from the white fillings.



I started out like everyone else, pain when I would bite down, etc. I literally had my fillings "taken down" eleven separate times to no avail. (what I found out later-not by my dentist- is that when you have pain after biting down, etc, that you are actually damaging/bruising the tooth. So, all the times you have the fillings taken down, you are damaging the tooth. It is also very hard on teeth to replace fillings in a short amount of time, thus probably the cause of my root canal trauma). Then I started to have the unbearable pain. My dentist finally suggested taking them out one by one and put silver fillings back in. I agreed. After the first white filling was taken out, she found an exposure, and told me that I need a root canal. (there was not an exposure there two months ago) she also found another exposure on another replaced filling tooth. So, I need two root canals and crowns, and no insurance. It will cost me $1800 per tooth.



Everyone please be informed before getting white fillings, especially on molars with large cavities. Also, make sure that you don't have long pulp-horns if you plan on getting white fillings on molars. White fillings are generally only good for smaller teeth, not molars.



Like everone else here, if I had any idea that this was going to happen, I would have never, ever touched my original fiillings, unless there was a problem. If it's not broke, don't fix it. P.S. My third white filling that I had removed and silver put back in is throbbing now too. Please pray that I will not need a third root canal. Make sure to do your homework. Also, we have to all come together and file complaints with the better business bureau. That way when we are doing our homework on dentists, we can find out if there have been complaints filed about prospective dentists. If noone complains, other people have no idea about credentials.

Hi gooders,

i know there are wonderful dentists out there, but there are bad one's as well, just like in every profession. The people on this site have a common analogy with their dental experiences. This is a place to vent our experiences, and to inform the public. If we all had been properly informed by our dentists, most of us would not be on this website. This has nothing to do with dental hygiene. This is about malpractice.

:cry: hi everyone just wanted to add my experience. I have not had any issues with my teeth till about 5 years ago I am 26 now. Braces were the cause of the issues I had they didnt recover them with protective covering and took off enamel when removing braces.

Ok I have had 5 teeth removed, but recently like 3 weeks ago I had a temp filling done on my front top fang tooth, which wasnt hurting then just had a chip that got worse. About 12 to 13 days after the temp filling I started having some intense pain , couldnt sleep it throbbed, like burning to. Only hurt in tooth not the gum . And it cause my other further back top and bottom ones to hurt on the same side. Went back have it checked they said it was a really bad tooth that extraction is needed but think they should maybe try the root canal first see if it can save it. ( here there is nothing saying it will work out). Me being terrified of the root canal, I am trying to find some hope that it wont hurt, thinking of just saying heck with it pull it. And get a partial. They did an xray before they did the temp filling and spoke and acted like it was hopeless on the temp filling. It was not painful having it drilled but didnt do the root just the decay on front of tooth. Afterwards was the painful situation. :roll: truthfully I am really leaning towards extraction of the tooth so many peopel have problems with root canal after wards and dont sound worth it and it is so expensive to have done. Oh and according to my dentist before he did the temp filling it did have slight infection in it yet he didnt prescribe anything, that is suppost to be what caused my pain I took pencilian it helped alot, not pain now but still taking the pencillian to took 4 days to take effect. I hope you find some comfort, I am almost to the point to just say heck with anything that pertains to a simple filling. Oh and according to some research I have done, in many cases root canals can cause several issues with health later or right after wards. Cause they only drill the nerve out of the tooth and the remaining above there is still there and is traumatized by the drilling. Oh and ask what kind of material they are putting in the fillings and such before letting them it is found some dentist use a substance that can cause infertility as well, mercury and such, helps the filling to stick to tooth to fill it. God bless you all. I hope you all get feeling better.

I'm very sorry that many of you have had complications after having dental treatment.However,many of you are saying that you did not have any problems beforehand. You did and you were just not aware of it. Unfortunately, in dentistry, pain is not always an indication of a problem. When a tooth has gotten to the point that it hurts- you are looking at either root canal treatment or at the worst, an extraction. Most dentists are very ethical and would not replace a filling unless they find evidence of leakage or filling breakdown. I recall someone posting that they had the fillings for over 20 years without any problems. Any type of dental work has a life span and needs replacement after 10 or so years. Please tell me if you have any car or appliance more than that????Yes, dental work is expensive and most people don't really have any idea what is going on in their mouths and always question if it is really needed-oh- and my favorite-not covered by insurance(which is not the dentist's fault-another topic-don't even get me started on that one!!!)yet, does insurance cover your coach bag or seven jeans???Please tell me where I can get 100% coverage for a great new wardrobe, cuz i'm having a heck of time finding it.
If some of you would be as communicative with your dentists as you are here, you may get some answers to your questions and remove some of the misinformation and doubts you have regarding dentistry.By and far, I have found dentists to be (as a whole) more ethical than m.D.'s.I know I may get slammed for posting this, but I am not attacking anyone, just trying to shed a little light onto darkened subject.
Patty

I found this thread through google and signed up.


I had 3 fillings done on one side of my mouth, the 2 lower molars were filled with the white composite filling the top were filled with amalgam, mid-way through the drilling process they realized they had not verified which filling type I wanted. They had to verify with the person I came with, who chose composite for me, on my bottom two molars, I had no idea of the pros and cons of each material. Only a couple days after the drilling most of the soreness had gone away. Except in one composite filled tooth (the bigger filling)

roughly 10days after the drilling I ate somewhat hard food, after having mostly softer foods, spaggetti, sandwhiches, etc. When eating the hard food, I had the exact same pain as described by seeker

"but then I noticed that occassionally I would bite down on something hard, and if it just the right spot, ouch! I can't even duplicate the experience artificially, it only happens when I least expect it, on some minute portion of the tooth.
"
the pain was fairly bad, and I had this acute pressure related pain multiple times while eating today--three times actully. In two different times while chewing blackberrys(which had rather hard seeds), and another while eating a rather hard oat-bar-thing. I wasn't even chewing on that side of my mouth, it was simply my top teeth hitting the composite filled tooth on the bottom with the torque of chewing through the food on the right. Now it is just this dull pain so far, like I had right after the drilling, the thing is all the other teeth that were drilled feel fine, just one of the two composites is hurting. Any advice for me? When I asked what type of filling I would get he simply said 'silver.' after researching I found there is no way to avoid mercury being in the amalgam, so I am worried about this in the long term.

For now that is a side issue, how soon could I consider having the one compsite filling taken out and replaced with alamgam if the pain contiues, but im worried about the mercury content. There honestly seems to be no practical solution to a cavity it seems.


How long should I let the pain go? So far its been 10days, almost two weeks. 2weeks seems to be the threshold of something being wrong with the tooth, either a bubble, or a complication with this white compound material. I'm making an appointment with the dentist asap but I want to have a mindset to make sure I work toward getting this fixed. I dont want to go in there, have the filling grinded down and be sent on my way with this painfull tooth. I'll definately be reporting back.

Edit: wow, I feel a little weird posting in this, 35,000 views!? How did this thread get jumped to first result on google for searching 'filling pain'

Hi everyone. I have kind of a different spin on this thread because for the last 13 years i've had composite fillings with zero problems. Last year around this time I had 3 teeth filled and one wisdom tooth extracted on the right, again with no problems.

3 weeks ago I had 3 teeth filled on the bottom left. After the local anesthetic wore off I noticed pain when I bit down as well as pain if anything cold (even a little bit cold - not like ice water or anything) or too hot hit any of the 3 teeth. Too much air on the teeth also hurt it. To push on the outsides of the tooth hurt as well.


I should mention that the pain only happens on the outside of the teeth, where the fillings mostly were. So I called the dentist and got the whole "tooth sensitivity" speech. Well, I went back about a week later and she ground down the wisdom tooth filling and told me that I had bruised the tooth or nerve or something by attempting to chew on that side (and belive me, I didn't attempt it a lot - I was mostly chewing on the right side). Another week or so passes and nothing has changed so this past friday I went in and had some more grinding done. Well, the bite feels better, but the pain is still there. I notice it seems even worse with temperatures now - even room temperature water hurts it (it has to be a little warm and then it feels fine). All day long, off and on it will ache (say, after I eat - even if i'm not directly chewing on that side) ... When I go to bed it will ache, then I get up in the morning and it's fine (still hurts to bite though). Now the dentist on friday told me that the nerves are really bruised because of the bite being too high for over 2 weeks. So I suppose i'm back at square 1 again. However, even though I hate going to the dentist, i'd rather keep going back to figure out what the heck is going on than be in pain or have a situation get worse. I am going to see if there seems to be any improvement this week and if not, i'll be back in there again on friday, demanding an x-ray.


On another note, I even have "referral" pain in some of the front teeth. I've done some research on this and supposedly that will go away as well.


What is so upsetting is i've not been one of those people with any sensitivity after fillings have been done before - and i've always had composite fillings. I do realize that none of my other fillings were right along the sides of my teeth, but I have had some pretty deep fillings (2 of them) with absolutely no incidence before.


The dentist told me to use this gelkam toothpaste stuff. I'm one of those anti-flouride people,so i'm opposed to putting a toxic substance such as flouride on permeable mouth tissue and just the warnings alone on this other gel desensitizing agents are enough to scare me off (ie "if you swallow any material contact poison control center immediately").

I stayed up until 1:30 a.M reading these posts after I came across this site and I am relieved (not happy) that others are in the same situation. The last post from sherryh123 urged me to join because it is almost identical to my experience.
I had the white filling to replace an old one that was sensitive to hard things. It was cracked. It was only 2 yrs old and I was frustrated that I had to endure another filling replacement. I have had an anxiety, heart racing, oxygen receiving episode years ago because of the ephedrine in the novocaine and since then, I don't even like to go for a cleaning for fear of a repeat performance. It may be in my head now, but it's association with that damn chair.
My filling is still super sensitive and I can't eat on that side at all. It has been a month now. I was told it could take months, but I am afraid of a root canal. I never had one, and I think I will endure for awhile to avoid that diagnosis. I wake up feeling fine in the morning, but mid day I have to take some ibuprofen because of the dull ache after a meal. So aggravating. It feels the same as the reason I went in in the first place :(
hope everyone is doing better. I think about the posts I read and send good thoughts that some things were resolved by now.....

Hi all,

i have had a similar experience. My tooth hurts when I bite down on it. But what really scared me was that after the treatment, the skin on my gums was all torn and raw. I went back to my dentist who said it was a dental allergy. Is there such a thing. I have had tooth colored fillings done before (with another dentist) and have atleast 8 or so of them before this and never experiened this allergy. To me it looked like my dentist just went beserk with the drill. Anyone have similar experience?

I received five composite fillings all on the left side of my mouth 8 days ago. Most of the fillings were to replace my old silver fillings but some were new cavities. I went back to the dentist twice to have the bite adjusted and my teeth felt slightly better. However, I still get a dull achey pain whenever I chew food - especially chewy foods like bread, pasta, etc. However it does not hurt when I chew hard things such as pretzels. This whole situation is really frustrating me - has anyone had a similar experience? The pain feels like it is in my lower teeth now too, I don't understand. Someone please help!