I go to my dentist every three months. After a month past from my previous appointment, I developed a pretty bad toothache. A week later I finally got to see him. He looked at my previous x-ray and didn’t see anything dodgy. He also looked at the tooth where I was having pain and told me that there was no problems with the filling. As a precaution he gave me an antibiotic and said as long as the pain goes away, I won’t need to come back until my next appointment. I am having a hard time thinking this is a good solution. Is there anything else I should be looking at?
Emily
Dear Emily,
I have heard a LOT of dental horror stories or dumb dentist stories and this one is going in one of those files. I’ll let you decide which. Here are some of my problems with how your dentist handled this. First, he didn’t take another x-ray. If you’re there for a toothache something has changed since your last appointment.
Also, it sounded to me like the only test he ran was looking at your filling. There are several other tests he should have done as well, such as tapping on your tooth to see if the pain is aggravated, a cold and heat test, even an electrical test.
The next problem I have about it is the “solution” he provided for you. If he gives you antibiotics and the tooth is infected, it will start to feel better. His advice that it would signal you don’t need further treatment is the exact opposite of what he should be telling you.
Here’s the problem. If the tooth is infected, it will feel better, then after the antibiotics run out the infection will flare up. The only way to truly get rid of an infected tooth is for the dentist to physically remove the infected pulp. He can do that by a root canal treatment or a tooth extraction. I’m thinking you should see another dentist before you end up with a dental emergency.
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