Anyone ever had this happen? I think a filling had come loose in my tooth. It's still in there but wiggly. Hurts sometimes especially after I eat. I hope they don't throw around words like "root canal" when I go.

Pretty sure I'd get in sooner than later. Sounds like a great place for decay to advance rapidly since you can't clean it

Yep. Get that fixed post haste.

Most likely cause of a loose filling is either decay under the filling, which is common, or a split tooth, which is not. Pain after eating may be a sign of something going poorly, but not deifinitive.

Get to a dentist. If you do need a root canal, I highly recommend seeing an endodontist.

Thanks ags; oh I am getting in on Thursday. The tooth is one of my left back ones and then it makes the left side of my head hurt. Been able to control it with ibuprofen but hoping it's not some big ass procedure. Well, good advice on the endodontist if it is something major. I hadn't heard of an endodontist before; learn something new everyday.

A good endodontist can do a root canal way quicker and less painfully than a general dentist can. When my dad was practicing, he sent all root canal jobs to an endodontist.

Not to get into an argument and de-rail your thread, but for cases that are not straight forward, I recommend the endodontist as well. They have additional training and do root canals all day. This does not mean your general dentist can't do a great root canal.
Think of it as a professional golfer (endodontist) vs. a weekend golfer (GP) both could hit a 200 yard wide fairway but id rather have the professional golfer trying to stick a small green from 150 out. Some weekend golfers are WAY better than others. To keep with that analogy some teeth are 200 yard wide open fairways and slam dunks easy for a general dentist without any additional effort and pain as Big Cat would make you think. Some cases are 10 yard wide greens.

With that being said, if the tooth is causing you spontaneous pain coming from the tooth, that may be a bad sign. Hopefully it is just the loose filling putting pressure on the gums causing pain. At a minimum you're looking at a replacement filling, possibly a onlay or crown.
If the nerve in the tooth is bad, you're tacking on a root canal to that.

And worst case is the tooth is cracked down into the root, which would require an extraction.
Don't be afraid to ask more questions or get a second opinion. Best of luck!

Where are you located? Maybe we can recommend a good dentist or endo for you.

By the way, the majority of root canals in the US are performed by general dentists.

I'm in brenham. I go to Dr. Altman. No root canal needed! A filling had come loose as I suspected so they had to fill it again. Only thing that sucks is I had 4 new cavities. Previously, I had only had one cavity in my entire life and that was when I was 18 and they took my braces off and said they didn't think there was a way to avoid that one. I don't feel like my hygiene habits have changed. I brush twice a day and floss daily with those picks. But I do drink one Diet Coke a day and unsweet tea. Don't eat a lot of sweets but eat chips daily. Don't know what that does. Which of these habits is worst? I should have asked him that.

That's funny, I shadowed in Dr. Altmans office several years ago. My in laws live in Brenham.


So, Diet cokes are more acidic than regular coke even though its minus the sugar.

The key is frequency rather than quantity. If you are sipping on a coke all day vs chugging one it makes a big diff. Make sure to cut out frequent snacking/sipping. At the very least, rinse your mouth out with water after you drink a coke or eat chips (carbs fuel bacteria to break down teeth just like sugar).

4 cavities sounds like a lot but to be honest it really isn't... especially if they are between the teeth -you can have a cavity in only 2 areas but it will involve 4 teeth... if that makes sense since its 2 surfaces that are touching each other and thats where the cavity is.

So I forgot to mention the reason it is due to frequency is bc tooth decay is based off of pH balance in your mouth.

Each time you take a sip of coke the pH dips down and it takes time for your saliva to buffer that and the pH of your mouth to become neutral again. Anytime the pH is below 5.5 the teeth start to break down. so if you sip all day your mouth never gets a chance to recover to neutral. Energy drinks are the worse- even though their pH is not as acidic as some other drinks, something ingredient in them creates delays in the buffering in your mouth so the pH stays low for longer as compared to coke for example.

How sugar and carbs play into that is they are the food source for bacteria in your mouth which reside as a film called plaque. So any left over sugar/carbs that dont get cleaned out becomes a buffet for the bacteria. Their byproduct of ingesting these sugars/carbs is acid.

Hence removal of as much bacteria as possible by brushing and flossing the plaque away and removing the food source sugar and carbs either by not ingesting in first place or by cleaning away with flossing and brushing helps tremendously.

Sounds like me. I went in for a (what I thought was) broken tooth in May. It was a busted filling plus further decay in the tooth. And oh by the way, you've got two other cavities. One of those teeth has to be crowned. Thank God for Delta Dental.

Okay, the coke is more of a chug but I sip on unsweet iced tea. Does that change the pH? It's just brown water. I am a frequent snacker (healthy weight, exercise a lot) so that's good to be aware of. May alter my frequency of eating a bit. But what about the tea, man? I can't go a day without ......

fido00 said:

---

By the way, the majority of root canals in the US are performed by general dentists.

---

100% true. Now please provide data on who those same patients go see when they need their root canal redone. The good dentists send you to me. The bad ones tell you the tooth was cracked and try to sell you an implant.

Many general dentists do root canals. If you want it done quickly, comfortably, and painlessly, see an endodontist.

pinkdog said:

---

I'm in brenham. I go to Dr. Altman. No root canal needed! A filling had come loose as I suspected so they had to fill it again.

---

Glad it worked out! Pardon the emoji. I misread your post.

As a general dentist this smacks as elitistism. Should I refer all scaling to the perio, all exts to OS, and all crowns to a prosth? I will just be over and stick with my occlusal restorations.

Endo Ag said:

---

Most likely cause of a loose filling is either decay under the filling, which is common, or a split tooth, which is not. Pain after eating may be a sign of something going poorly, but not deifinitive.

Get to a dentist. If you do need a root canal, I highly recommend seeing an endodontist.

---

Agreed, I had an old filling come out years ago and had to have a root canal. I let the dentist do it. Fast forward a year later and I had to have it retreated but this time by an endodontist. It has been a few years now and no issues after the re treatment. I wish I had used an endodontist the first time.

Endo Ag said:

---

fido00 said:

---

As a general dentist this smacks as elitistism. Should I refer all scaling to the perio, all exts to OS, and all crowns to a prosth? I will just be over and stick with my occlusal restorations.

---

---

Quote:

---

I wrote a bunch of extra stuff here, but I'll keep it simple. The first image is a case I treated today preop, the second is after I retreated the tooth. The general dentist only treated one canal, when the tooth had three.









I still have to do surgery in two weeks to treat the tooth on the left which has anther poor quality treatment. These were treated in another state from me by a general dentist. This is what I see daily.

---

Endo Ag, dont get me wrong Im best friends with my endodontist across the hall and send him a lot of patients, but I believe as a specialist you are biased. I'm not singling you out, I think all specialists are biased. The reason is you see the failures and the worst of the worst everyday. You don't see the successes, because after all why would they see you?

Refer to my analogy before : it all depends on the case and depends on the practitioner doing it.