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Possible broken molar, freaking out like crazy atm.

T

TheTeething

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Joined
Dec 3, 2015
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Location
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So, it's been a while since I've last been to this forum. Recently, I've been experiencing sharp pains in my bottom-left molar, which sent alarm bells ringing in my head. I decided to check it out in the mirror and saw what appears to be a vertical line going down the middle of my tooth, is this a crack on the tooth or the buccal groove? The tooth in question is rather sensitive to cold substances and would often cause my jaw to be sore. It would often ache as well. If anyone can give me any answers, that'd be great, I thought I would have been done with my dental troubles after Jaunary where the dentist said everything was alright. I suppose I was expecting too much, not to mention this issue is causing my anxiety to start up, making me a complete mess.
 

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Went to the dentist twice now, after doing the scaling and polishing and some tests, the dentist seems quite firm that it's just a craze line, which, I suppose is a good thing. The tooth doesn't have any sharp pains. However, it still aches at random intervals,like a dull throbbing, and doesn't like it when I eat/drink sugarly stuff. The ache wears off as soon as the sugar is gone from the tooth though and it isn't sensitive to hot/cold stuff nor chewing, which are good as well.Oddly enough, it does hurt when I touch the tooth with my tongue but not my fingers. What gives?
 
Yet another update. After two months of which the pain was bearable, I had a stroke of bad luck. I bit on some chicken bone on my first molar and minutes later, sharp aching pain erupted from the tooth before disappearing. However, afterwards, whenever the molar aches, so does my arm for some reason? My jaw has been really, really sore as of late as well. The dentist believes it could be referred pain from a facial nerve or TMJ disorder.

Anyways, the question I would like to ask is, if there's any fractures on the molar, there's a line you can see at the front of it that extends into the gumline. The dentist don't know what to make of it, she isn't sure if it is a fracture or a craze line which is honestly causing me to panic. As childish as it might seem, I don't want to lose the tooth and I'm worried that it might be a fracture line and the tooth will be doomed.It's been bothering me for the past few days now and I've been losing sleep over it. I'm aware this probably is a poor reason and I'm probably thinking too much but I just cant' help it. Not to mention any damage done to the tooth, the body can't heal it like any other bones in the body.
 

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Always a little bit hard to tell from just a couple of pictures, but here are my thoughts (I'm a dentist btw).

1. It doesn't look like you've had any work done on that tooth previously. Fractures in teeth without fillings are very rare.
2. The line looks like a developmental groove, not a fracture line to me.
3. It also looks like you've got some pretty good wear on your canine and possibly your other front teeth. Do you know if you grind or clench your teeth? You may do it at night and not know it. If you don't wear a night guard already, I'd try wearing one for about a week to see if the pain resolves with that.
 
Yeah, there wasn't any work done on my teeth at all. Honestly, I'm kinda surprised nothing went too wrong considering for the last 6 years, I was in a bad, bad place and honestly didn't care much for my health, much less my dental health. But recently, I pulled together and got myself back on track.

I'm not too certain if I grind my teeth to be honest. Might use my phone to record the sounds at night to see if I do grind my tooth.. I could show the xray I was given, but I'm not sure how useful it would be. The dentist believe that other than the fracture, it's possible the pain might be referred as the jaw on the side where the molar with the line is very sore and often, it clicks a lot when I open my mouth, very loudly too. Is it possible for TMJ disorder to only refer pain to one tooth only?

A little more info on the line. When I run my finger across the front surface of the tooth with the line it gets caught in it. It is very shallow though and doesn't feel to be a hole at all. Kinda feels like how the grooves on the two sides of the tooth does. Does that prove that it might be a fracture line or is it still as you suspect?

Honestly, thank you for the reply, it calmed me down a little. I might be asking too many questions and for that, I apologize.
 
Still sounds like a normal groove in the tooth to me. Even normal grooves can cause catches, etc.

TMJ pain can definitely show up in many different ways. Usually it is a more general soreness than anything else but I have seen people with referred pain to one or two teeth.

Whether it is grinding or a TMJ problem, a nightguard will usually help.
 
Sorry, just to clarify, after looking up what you had written about the groove, I think that there might be a misunderstanding as what I'm referring to as the issue is the somewhat barely seeable line as it is circled by a red circle. Looking at the picture, there's a line on the occlusal surface of the tooth and I think you might be talking about that as it seems to match with what google had pulled up. However, if there isn't any misunderstanding and we are on the same page, then great!

Also, once again, thank you for the replies. My anxiety has been decreasing after seeing your answers.
 

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Haha. No worries. Some people have little grooves or craze lines in that exact spot. Very unlikely that it's anything to be concerned with since your dentist didn't find any cavities, problems, etc when they checked it out.
 
Yeah, the dentist said the gums are fine, no pockets were around and the x-ray they did showed that the gum level are at a healthy level. There's literally nothing wrong there except for the mention of that one line. But anyways, thank you so much for your replies, I honestly feel a lot more at ease now!
 
I am not a dentist, I am just a person who suffered a fractured tooth. It was the most unbearable agony I have ever been through in my life. I could not eat or sleep or function and literally wished that I would just die. I cried every single day. I lost 20 pounds in 21 days due to inability to eat. I went from dentist to dentist begging for my tooth to be extracted.
If your tooth was fractured all the way through you would know it. It would not be an on and off occasional pain. It surpasses the pain of abscess or child birth or anything else. I could not chew on the tooth at all. but the pain was constant whether I was trying to eat or not.
Your tooth looks normal to me.
 
So, I went to another dentist that my family goes to. Not sure how to feel about it. She basically knocked on the tooth hard, pressed it and then asked if it was painful. It wasn't, she then decided to do a scaling and gave me some antibiotics to take.

After the scaling, my molar has been really sensitive to hot stuff and cold stuff. Pressure doesn't really hurt it though. Is it possible that scaling can cause increased sensitivity to tooth? I'm currently wondering if I should just do a root canal and a crown and be done with it or wait for a few more days to see if the tooth calms down. It's really stressing me out and worsening my mood.
 
Last edited:
An update.

Somewhere this afternoon, my tooth started to.. err.. Throb? Yeah, I think that's it.. It's a pulsing sensation that seems to be coming from the inside of the tooth and while it doesn't hurt much, it sends a tingling sensation.

I kinda wish I know what's up with the tooth so that I can get the correct treatment. Currently in denial and hoping I don't need to get something drastic done. That and the fact that my national exams (Important exams) Are coming up this coming week is not helping with my stress at all.

Ahaha.. I wish I can go back to last year where my only worries was to study and get ready for my exams and not this tooth issue I have currently.. :hidesbehindsofa:
 
I... Am really confused now.

As of a few hours ago. My bottom-left molar which has caused me so much trouble has stopped aching, it still has sensitivity to cold but not much. However, the ache seems to have transferred to my top-right and bottom-right molar. I'm not certain if it's something dental anymore if the ache can somehow go from one side of my month to another. The new problem tooth currently are sensitivite to whenever I run my tongue cross them and chewing.

Anyone has any ideas as to how this is possible? Just asking as my appointment with a hospitial is like... 2 weeks away, the fastest that they can book us in and I'm slowly turning into a wreck wondering what is going on.
 
Awww, I don't think you should be worrying this much :hug4:

It really doesn't sound like there is anything seriously wrong with that tooth. If it was cracked or fractured you would be in agony. If it was decaying or had cavity that would be visible for the doctors.
That pulsing feeling comes from the nerve. But the thing with nerves is that pain can "travel" or emit.
The phone would not be able to record the sound of teeth grinding so thats useless.
The clicking in your jaw sound like TMJ. I had that clicking when my braces were left on for too long. But then with time it went away. Recently i also had weird jaw soreness, I wasn't grinding, just sort of placing my jaw in a weird way while I was asleep. Human anatomy is weird. But that stopped as well.

Anyhow don't really worry to much, those 2 weeks are not a long time, it will go by fast and nothing really wrong can happen in that time. Just go ahead with your studies and everything will be fine ;)
 
So, it's been a while, exams are finally over, so, that's one less thing to worry about..

That being said, here's an update.

We went to the hospital that was recommended. They had us go to the dentist and the dentist seems to believe it could be an infection from the wisdom tooth that's causing the tingling and pain towards the bottom-left first molar due to there being a flap of gum that can be easily moved away from the teeth on the side of it. She says that we should pull the wisdom tooth out. I'm not too sure if that's actually the case but at this point, I really don't have much to lose. The wisdom tooth is slightly impacted so, they had to go anyways at some point.The problem being since it's a hospital, appointments are pretty hard to book, so, we don't have a date on when they can extract the wisdom tooth. Already getting the jitters at the thought of having to pull out my teeth, even if they are wisdom tooth.
 
Important update.

So, on the day of the appointment itself,which is today, the dentist decides to move up the appointment to next week, apparently, they'll be gone for "recreational purposes" Or something. Atm, I'm freaking out badly. See, last week, it was my birthday and hence, we had a celebration. I got the stupid idea to chew some ice and it caused a lot of pain for the molar in question then. It made the celebration pretty sucky as my tooth was aching badly by the time we had dinner. The days after that, the tooth started to heal, I think? The sensitivity was going down and there isn't pain in chewing anymore.

However, when I was drinking a cold drink today that usually causes my tooth to throb a little, there was no reaction. Alarm bells started ringing and I decided to try to eat another cube of ice. No pain, no nothing. Can anyone tell me what's going on? I'm scared that the tooth nerve finally decided to up and die and that I'll have to have an extraction now. And I have to wait till next week before we can go for the appointment so, this is making me a bigger mess than before.
 
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