What can cause pain after a filling? – Dr. Nandini Nelivigi

Pain is not here after every filing, but pain may be there after few fillings are done. There could be various reasons why this kind of pain happens one is the depth of the cavity. If you have an extensive carious lesion, we may have to excavate the entire area to remove all the caries and do all the filling. So in this process of excavation, we may get pretty close to the pulp and the dental work may cause some kind of inflammation to the pulp and the inflamed pulp may respond by giving some kind of pain. So this pain ma last forma few days to a week or 10 days. So the pain goes on subsiding over a period of week or 10 days. So by the end of a week or 10 days, you should be actually good without pain, the other reason why pain can happen is something called a high point, whenever you bite or clench your teeth, the upper teeth or the lower teeth make a contact with the filling first before any other tooth makes a contact with each other, a dentist would definitely reduce all the high points, but some high point may be left behind and in such patients will have continued pain and the pain does not subside or reduce over period of time. In these situations, you are requested to contact the dentist again and the dentist will reduce the high point to lower down the pain and the pain will absolutely go away once the high points are reduced. A word of caution, if you have an extensive various lesion, and the excavation is done, in an attempt to prevent root canal treatment, we may do procedures like direct or indirect pulp capping. In these procedures, we may have procedures that are very close to the pulp. So inflammation of the pulp may not subside with filings alone, if you have continuous pain that may not subside at all over a period of time, then you have to consult your dentist back and maybe you will be advised a root canal treatment.