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Galvanic Shock? :( Help Needed

T

Tinks

Junior member
Joined
Oct 28, 2012
Messages
1
Firstly hi everyone, ive been drawn to this forum due to the same reason as most of you, i hate dentists, but i have a problem...

So, what started out as - or what i hoped would be - a routine check up, to make sure my teeth would be OK for an upcoming SCUBA course in Bangkok (I leave the Country in early Dec), has turned in to an agonizing Fortnight.

At appointment one, i had the usual check up and X-ray, and it turned out three of my Molars (one from each corner except my upper left) needed to have the filling removed to repair the damage caused by small amount of decay underneath each one. The fillings were put in over 10years ago at a guess, (i get rediculously worked up about going to the dentists so dont go as often as i should), the dentist and i agreed that the work would be carried out over two appointments to reduce the length of time on the chair in one sitting, and do the lower left on app 1 and the upper and lower right on app 2, both with local anaesthetic so that i wouldnt feel it.

At Appointment 2 i had the anaesthetic and she started drilling, deeper and deeper until i felt the drill! so another injection to further numb the pain, finally she cleared the decay, told me something about medicating the nerve or puttng medication on the nerve to kill it off (i was trying not to break down in to tears rather than paying attention) and filled the whole with an amalgum (sp?) so off i trot home and wait for the feeling to return to my face.

A week later at App 3 knowing that i am quite sensitive to dentistry and drilling in particular, the dentist started of with a double injection before starting work on my right hand side, the exact same thing happened as in app 2, i could feel her drilling in the lower tooth, so she gave me a third injection.
an hour or two after the injections wearing off, i began getting funny jolts in the right hand side of my face that felt like electrical shocks, the following day I went back to the dentists after a few hours of persuasion from my mother and tried to explain to the dentist what was happening, she had a quick look and a prod, and said that it was perfectly normal and due to her having to go so close to the nerves. Her advice was to leave it for two weeks and see if it calms down.

Well it has now been a week, and im still getting the shocks, some days i dont get any for a few hours, then just a few, other days, i get them every 15- 20 seconds for hours on end, ive done a bit of research and am led to beleive it could be Galvanic shock as the two new fillings on the RHS are reacting with an older filling on the tooth behind on the lower jaw, particulaly when eating, or when my tongue is in contact with the fillings

Is this Galvanic Shock, and does anyone know what i can do to stop it or at least make it bareable, as its doing my head in and making my jaw hurt. ideally i dont want to go back to the dentists and have a non-metallic filling fitting as a) that means more time on the chair b) Im afraid there wont be enough of the original tooth remaining after removing the new filling, and c) i've read that non-metallic filling are more prone to falling out, and i cant have that happing whilst im diving as i'll be on the other side of the world and am also running to a reasonably tight timeschedule to cant afford the time to spend it on a Dentists chair in Bangkok. Or do i just have to be brave get it replaced?

Thanks in advance for any remedies (Preferably tried and tested) and advice given, also sorry for the really long post!
 
I'm not a dentist but I don't think it is galvanic shock because it is likely that your old fillings are also amalgam - ie same kind of metal which will not react with each other.
It sounds more likely that there is temporary damage to a nerve - you said that the dentist said it was 'due to her having to go so close to the nerves'. That is the clue I think.
Apologies if I have got this wrong. One of the dentists will likely give an answer soon.
Hope you enjoy your diving trip :)
Coolin
 
As coolin said, galvanic shock seems unlikely when it's the same material (though as a non-dentist, I don't know if there are differences in the composition of amalgams which could produce a galvanic shock).

You could try eating a soft-boiled egg (I'm not having you on :grin:):

 
Hi Tinks :welcome: when I had a rct done a few months ago I felt like I was having a reaction when I closed my teeth, it wasn't very pleasant. I thought it was reacting to my gold crown on the bottom, it drove me mad for a while but it has gone now. I don't know what it was or why it happened but it went on it's own after about two or three months.

I hope you find out what it is and that you get it stopped for you. Mine didn't sound as bad as yours is, but it might just go.
 
It's worth asking the dentist to carefully check the bite on the teeth that were filled, if there's a wee high spot then that could give you similar symptoms to what you're describing. Only takes a minute to check and fix it :)

Impressed with the scuba course, I could never do that.
 
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