Do people feel pain with rotten tooth? Asking out of curiosity.

[AngelCatMei]

Hi all,

This question has been on my mind since years but do people with rotten tooth feel any pain? Like those tooth that turned black and etc.

My parents don't visit dentist at all in their life l, except to extract decay tooth and replace with denture. I grow up in an environment that don't honour dental care, I only started flossing and visiting dentist for cleaning when I started my braces journey at 21 years old. So I guess you all can guess how damage my teeth is. I got my first root canal when I'm 22 years old on my lower right first molar which eventually failed and it got extracted midway into my braces journey. Planning to get an implant this year (hopefully).

And, my second problematic tooth is my upper left first molar that I got a root canal last year December. It was heavily filled back in 2017 before braces as the decay is near the nerve. I just recently got it crowned with zirconia crown. Dentist saw slight shadow under one of the root but he says let's see how it goes. Now I'm having ear, jaw and chin pain and some redness gum around the crowned tooth.

Third problematic tooth is the one behind the RCT tooth, upper left second molar. It was chipped when I accidentally bite into clam shell while eating out. I got it filled with silver filling around late 2016. It was working well till last year Oct, previously dentist decided to replace my silver filling as she says it's leaking. Opened it up and she says there's decay so she cleaned it up and replace with white filling. She told me to go back to her if it's hurts. Fast forward, no pain till early this year, it occasionally having pain but not major. What's bothering me is the ear pain which I don't know if it's causing by the RCT tooth or the heavily filled tooth.

Anyway, sorry for the long story about me but I'm just really curious as I saw a lot of elderly in my country with rotten black teeth and whenever I asked them if it hurts, since I believe during the process of the nerve dying, it must hurt like heck. But they told me it doesn't hurt. My parents is one of them that doesn't feel any pain.

So it lead back to me thinking why do I feel every single little pain or sensitivity when those elderly doesn't feel anything at all with their rotten teeth.

Anyone able to advise? ?

 

[Gordon]

It's one of those "it depends" questions, there will likely be a bit of pain from time to time but it depends how aggressive the bacteria are which have got into the dead nerve space and whether or not there's a hole big enough through the tooth to let infection drain out gradually. There will have probably been a bit of pain as the nerve died off first too.

 

[AngelCatMei]

It's one of those "it depends" questions, there will likely be a bit of pain from time to time but it depends how aggressive the bacteria are which have got into the dead nerve space and whether or not there's a hole big enough through the tooth to let infection drain out gradually. There will have probably been a bit of pain as the nerve died off first too.

Thank you for your reply! I always wonder about this as there's lots of elderly in my country with rotten teeth and seems to be able to function well with eating. But for me, even with a cavity, I couldn't tolerant the pain and that's why I wonder how do people with rotten teeth hold in the pain.

 

[MountainMama]

I think it can depend on the situation as well. I tend to have a very sensitive mouth and teeth. I feel every twinge and things seem to hurt more than with other people. I would say I have a low pain tolerance but in other situations I have no issues with pain, so I don’t know. Anyway, I had chipped my front tooth as a kid, and it slowly died over the years with no pain at all. It abscesses with no pain, even though there was no leaking and no sign of an abscess at all. It started hurting one day and both the dentist and the endodontist were amazed that I had an abscess that large and never knew it. The endodontist said it had to have been there for a few years at least. So sometimes things hurt and sometimes they don’t, I guess.

 

[mcredding]

Oh yes, it hurts a lot. I had excruciating nonstop pain from a molar as the nerve slowly died. By the time it finished dying, all of the crown part of my tooth was gone - nothing was left above the gumline. After that, there was no pain in that particular tooth for 2 yr - the amount of time it took me to get over my dental anxiety & get it extracted along with several other teeth.