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.
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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'