It’s been an adventure for my teeth for the last several months. It started near the end of 2023 when the dentist told me they’d have to replace a few fillings that were put in just a few years ago. I need to point out that I no longer have any metal fillings anymore. They were replaced with composite ones many years ago and whether or not this really needed to happen, I can’t be sure. What I do know is that these composite fillings appear to be less durable than my metal ones.
Anyways, it took me until March of this year to get around to replacing this fillings. They did three in a single visit and I was hoping this was the end of any outstanding dental work for a long time. A few weeks after the fillings were done, I started to feel some pain when I started chewing and biting with those teeth. Thankfully, it only hurt when I bit down but obviously this was something I needed to get looked at.
When I returned to the dentist, he explained the two fillings were probably rubbing up against each other, causing pressure when I was biting. He took a minute or two to file down the fillings, to make some more space. Things were instantly better and when I got home, I had something to eat and biting on that side was painless.
A few weeks after that, I was flossing my teeth one evening. I was pulling the floss out between two teeth when it caught on something. I felt something hard come out, like it was a piece of bone, and it clattered into the sink and down the drain. I knew it wasn’t food because it didn’t feel like I had a piece of bone stuck in my teeth. It wasn’t painful and I couldn’t see anything wrong with my teeth, so I just ignored it.
Two weeks later, I had a regularly scheduled dental cleaning appointment and the assistant immediately noticed that I had a hole of sorts in a tooth that was right where I was flossing. I told her my story of pulling something out and she said that was a filling that I had pulled out. So now, I had to get this filling replaced.
This weekend, I returned again to get this filling done again. The dentist said this particular filling was done in 2016 and somehow I was able to catch an edge of it and pull the whole damn thing out. Luckily, he wasn’t going to charge me for the filling because the same clinic had put the filling in and they were going to make it right.
This was a bit of a complicated filling that went up to the gum line, so the dentist actually had to involve some gum work. My gums were a bit sore for the rest of the day but were fine the day after.
My next dental appointment is a scheduled cleaning in October and I am hoping for no more dental surprises.