My dentist has me confused right now.

[Sasskitten]

I would have asked my dentist this earlier but my brain was still hung up on the fact that my tooth had a bleed in it when they took out the old filling (Or black filling as she called it.) I think they used bonding stuff instead of the normal filling on the number 2 tooth on the top right in he back. I knew the number because back in my teen years I had four teeth pulled and my wisdom teeth cut out and just last week the dentist said number four tooth isn't there and that number five tooth is the one that they had to pull.

But what she said after was that the decay was pretty deep and while some minor pain will be normal for a short time. If there is a continuous throbbing pain then one of two things has to be done. A root canal or a filling. I thought what they did already is a filling. I know they had to do a build up and I know at some point I will need a crown (Can't afford it right now.) But I thought what they just did was a filling. Can someone unconfuse me please?

 

[drm]

It sounds like what they did was a build-up. A build-up is basically a really large filling in preparation for putting a crown on the tooth. It is typically the same procedure and materials as a regular filling would be.

They were probably trying to tell you that the build-up was really deep and close to the nerve. If it traumatizes the nerve enough, you can get a sharp throbbing pain that doesn't go away for long periods of time. This tells you that the nerve is in the process of dying and the tooth needs a root canal.

If you're just having some minor sensitivity (sensitive to hot or cold that goes away within a couple of seconds) then the nerve is just fine.