Slight sensitivity to hot and cold drinks

[explosionsinthesky]

Hi,

I was wondering if you can advise me.

I have a filling that's slightly chipped. Two weeks ago when I was having my check up dentist I told him about it and he had a look at it. i think he took an xray and has done the tapping bit. Anyway he said he can't see anything wrong and suggested we monitor it. Now the tooth got slightly sensitive to hot. For example when I drink a hot tea, it will ache really mildly but will keep aching for a while.

I have an appointment next weeks and I plan to ask him about it again but the appointment is about placing a crown on my RTCed tooth so I don't know if I will get a chance so I just wanted to ask should I be worried and what could be the cause? does this mean the filling is leaking or that the nerve is dying and I'll need another RCT? I have no trouble biting down, there's no tenderness.

Many thanks once again

 

[drm]

A root canal is really only needed if the nerve in the tooth has died or is in the process of dying. Because the tooth has sensation to hot/cold it tells us that the nerve is still alive. A dying nerve causes some pretty specific symptoms which include...

Pain that wakes you up at night.
Moderately severe pain after hot/cold that lasts for minutes.
Severe pain that comes and goes all on it's own.

It doesn't sound like you have any of these at this point so I wouldn't expect you'd need a root canal. I'd agree about just monitoring it for now.

 

[explosionsinthesky]

Thank you sir, it was acting up for a couple of days but not it looks like it's settle so I might have irritated it. I'll make sure I mentioned it to my dentist if I somehow manage to resolve my RCT situation