A big chunk of my tooth broke off

[DrumNFeather]

Originally Posted by Black Diamond Bay

For the record I'm a nazi about oral hygiene, I shudder to think what might happen to them if I wasn't.

I just got back from the dentist. He drilled a little thinking he might be able to get away with just redoing the filling, but no. It's a root canal situation, however the roots on the tooth are curled, so he can't do it and had to give me an emergency referral to an endodontist for tomorrow. My wisdom teeth were also curled at the ends and I have not yet forgotten the misery that ensued after their removal, or the panic over the "high-probability for nerve damage." So I'm not feeling really great about any of this right now. Not to mention the fact that I have to get two shots of that novacaine to get numb, and then it numbs up half my face and my tongue so that I talk like a deaf person (my co-workers think it's hilarious). However, I'm trying to be grateful for it because he said that there's a good chance I'll be in a significant amount of pain when it wears off. So he gave me a prescription for codine I think (no idea, I've never take the painkillers anyway, the freak me out). I also am starving, haven't eaten anything yet today, and I'm not allowed to eat until the novacaine wears off, and then only chewing with the unafflicted side of my mouth to avoid accidentally dislodging the temporary filling. He recommended that regardless of how much pain I'm in tonight that I still try and eat a lot because I probably won't be able to eat at all tomorrow, and it could be a while before I'll be prepared to do much eating after that as well. All you weight loss people...I have the perfect diet for you.

Anyway, I'm done whining now, and just crossing my fingers that this goes more smoothly tomorrow than my wisdom teeth did.

I actually had a situation similar to yours...but you have just saved yourself a few months/years of misery and pain.

I chipped a molar a while back and when I got around to getting it fixed, my dentist put a crown on it (not cheap mind you) and said I'd be good to go. About a year later, I returned to inform my dentist that my back molar had been causing me severe pain and it was ultra sensitive. She sent me in for a root canal on the back tooth.

The endontist I saw told me that the back tooth was fine and that it was my crowned tooth that was the problem...that the crowned molar, not the far back molar needed the root canal.

I was pretty nervous at first, but after a few days of soreness and sensitive chewing, everything was back to normal.

Good luck!