Wobbly tooth I made worse! So painful...will it heal?

[rebeccauk]

Hi All
I'll try and keep this brief....
3 weeks ago I used a dentist supplied whitening treatment with the plastic trays that had been made to fit my teeth....the trays felt a little awkward to get on but I persevered and got a nice whitening effect, two days later I had a terrible ache in one of my upper front teeth which felt like a prolonged dull ache and the whole area felt cold. This persisted for over a week so I booked in with dentist to get it checked out. He tried hot and cold and tapping the tooth but there was no 'scrape me off the ceiling pain' just a continued pulsing throbbing aching pain. The xrays came back ok with signs of a small infection so was prescribed antibiotics and on my way.

The pain stayed for the rest of the course of antibiotics and I could feel the tooth moving slightly in its socket when eating so I booked in to dentist again and saw the other partner. I was having a little more sensitivity now, not so much hot and cold but more pain after chewing...it wasn't a shocking pain more of a strong ache afterwards. We talked about the whitening trays and how they'd felt awkward and the dentist felt that I'd maybe pushed the tooth out of line by forcing the trays on and left it weak/ sort of bruised by this. There was also some discussion about how my other front tooth was protruding and possibly pushing on the painful tooth so she decided to bond the painful tooth to its two neighbours to stop the wobbling. I HATED this bonded feeling as the tooth was pushed into an uncomfortable position before bonding and I came out of the dentist a very miserable person. The tooth felt like it had been forced into an achey and uncomfortable position and the throb was getting worse by the minute.

I got home and basically forced dental floss between the teeth with force to break the bonding solution - it took some doing but went with a crack on either side eventually...I was honestly like a woman possessed, not happy until I'd undone this painful situation....I then felt very guilty and very sore for the rest of the night.

I'm now kicking myself wondering if i've done even more damage, the wobbly tooth is back wobbling with no support and the aching and throbbing is back worse than ever. The gums are swollen and sore from the force of the dental floss.

I'm not sure what to do now....I'm so embarrassed to go back to the dentist and admit what I've done but I'm terrified that if I go back she may bond the teeth again and I know I can't stand that feeling and am scared it will be redone.

I'm praying that the pain is just the tooth reacting to whats happened and it may eventually heal itself as the xrays didn't show any fractures, abscess etc....then on the other hand I have moments when I'd love to have someone pull it out for me and I'd be rid of the pain....after 3 weeks of broken sleep I'm a woman on the edge and my family and relationships are suffering as I'm preoccupied with the whole saga.

I can't think about anything else and am terrified about what will happen. Any advice, support or thoughts would be very much appreciated

 

[furzumz]

First things first I'm not a dentist, so take this with a grain of salt

But as much as it may suck, I think given your situation you should go back into the dentist. A tooth that is 'wobbling' I imagine isn't going to stop wobbling on its own without getting dental work done to fix it.

The pain from having it bonded is probably just temporary, and you can always take over the counter pain medication to help with it until it wears off. But since you broke the bond, if your tooth is still moving around I'd assume it will only continue causing pain until you get it taken care of.

I'd suggest going back to your dentist and ask them what your options are. If the tooth gets re-bonded ask them when the pain will subside.

If you -really- want to, you could always request them to have the tooth extracted, but in the long run its always best to try to save teeth where ever possible. But like I said ask your dentist what your options are and with their help you can decide what to do from there.

 

[gentledental]

Hi All
I'll try and keep this brief....
3 weeks ago I used a dentist supplied whitening treatment with the plastic trays that had been made to fit my teeth....the trays felt a little awkward to get on but I persevered and got a nice whitening effect, two days later I had a terrible ache in one of my upper front teeth which felt like a prolonged dull ache and the whole area felt cold. This persisted for over a week so I booked in with dentist to get it checked out. He tried hot and cold and tapping the tooth but there was no 'scrape me off the ceiling pain' just a continued pulsing throbbing aching pain. The xrays came back ok with signs of a small infection so was prescribed antibiotics and on my way.

The pain stayed for the rest of the course of antibiotics and I could feel the tooth moving slightly in its socket when eating so I booked in to dentist again and saw the other partner. I was having a little more sensitivity now, not so much hot and cold but more pain after chewing...it wasn't a shocking pain more of a strong ache afterwards. We talked about the whitening trays and how they'd felt awkward and the dentist felt that I'd maybe pushed the tooth out of line by forcing the trays on and left it weak/ sort of bruised by this. There was also some discussion about how my other front tooth was protruding and possibly pushing on the painful tooth so she decided to bond the painful tooth to its two neighbours to stop the wobbling. I HATED this bonded feeling as the tooth was pushed into an uncomfortable position before bonding and I came out of the dentist a very miserable person. The tooth felt like it had been forced into an achey and uncomfortable position and the throb was getting worse by the minute.

I got home and basically forced dental floss between the teeth with force to break the bonding solution - it took some doing but went with a crack on either side eventually...I was honestly like a woman possessed, not happy until I'd undone this painful situation....I then felt very guilty and very sore for the rest of the night.

I'm now kicking myself wondering if i've done even more damage, the wobbly tooth is back wobbling with no support and the aching and throbbing is back worse than ever. The gums are swollen and sore from the force of the dental floss.

I'm not sure what to do now....I'm so embarrassed to go back to the dentist and admit what I've done but I'm terrified that if I go back she may bond the teeth again and I know I can't stand that feeling and am scared it will be redone.

I'm praying that the pain is just the tooth reacting to whats happened and it may eventually heal itself as the xrays didn't show any fractures, abscess etc....then on the other hand I have moments when I'd love to have someone pull it out for me and I'd be rid of the pain....after 3 weeks of broken sleep I'm a woman on the edge and my family and relationships are suffering as I'm preoccupied with the whole saga.

I can't think about anything else and am terrified about what will happen. Any advice, support or thoughts would be very much appreciated

Hello, your symptoms are very unique from teeth whitening and it is something I have never heard of. Certainly your dentists have taken steps and they are not working so you should go again to have this diagnosed properly. Remember the job for dentists are to diagnose and treat the disease and if you're still not getting better then something has been misdiagnosed.
I would stop all whitening activities at present until everything settles down.

 

[Kolya]

Something like this happened to me.... I got a night guard that didn't really fit right and my tooth got mad at me. It was pushing the tooth and made it ever so slightly mobile. I swear I thought I was going to lose that tooth. We have to remember that teeth do move a little bit and have ligaments in them that allow them to move, kind of like a trampoline to accommodate for biting forces. The movement went away after a few days when I stopped wearing the night guard and got a new one that actually fit. Maybe the tooth is just mad and because you're so anxious it's making it seem like the symptoms are worse than they actually are!

How mobile is the tooth? Super wobbly or does it just kind move ever so slightly?

 

[Suzannah99]

My thought is that the issue with bonding is that it can be a fraction out of line and then not have the ability to re-bed itself.
I had an issue with a tooth years ago - the one which I recently broke and it took a good 3-4 weeks to re-bed itself properly - it did and then lasted another 10-12 years.

I recently had bonding of that same tooth as it had broken proper this time in the gum. I had it extracted and bonded so I had no gap and then another nearby tooth began to click around and wobble (it didn't hurt though) so I asked for that to be bonded also. It felt very misaligned once bonded (not visibly and was only a fraction out of line) - however it was just a temporary fix as I knew I was having that one and another couple extracted at that stage.
Bonding is very uncomfortable and alters speech - I know just how uncomfortable it is.

If your tooth hasn't been bonded in it's correct position re-bedding would likely not happen or not sit normally.
You have however removed that bonding so may have stressed the tooth further. Is it improving at all?
Has the dentist given you a follow up appointment and said anything about further treatment/what the next step might be?

 

[rebeccauk]

Unfortunately this whole situation has turned into a saga. I went back to the dentist and they basically dismissed me and said I should just keep an eye on the tooth, forget about the bonding etc and said I should consider teeth straightening (which wasn't on my radar at all at this time). I was having pain in the tooth still and felt left stranded. I consulted another dentist who I'd had recommended and he said the tooth wasn't mobile at all, he couldn't detect movement but the tooth was a candidate for a RCT as the xrays showed a pocket of infection. He did the RCT on 15th December and I've had continuous pain since. The RCT has not settled as yet, the pain has varied from excruciating, waking me up in the night to unable to sleep at all from shocking pain and aching to milder aches and pains. I haven't had the final restoration yet....I think the new dentist is puzzled, he's very young and I suspect quite inexperienced. He's going to try and re-do the cleaning process on Thursday. The pain at the moment is like a burning sensation