At 9am on Saturday, I was in a dentist chair, which is usually not a place I am nor is it a place I wanted to be. About a month ago, I had two fillings done in two teeth that were next to each other. A week later, those teeth began hurting when I’d bite down to chew food. The pain would gradually increase until I had to chew on the other side of my mouth. Eventually, the pain would subside but still not go away completely.
Then the pain would return, cause me to not use those teeth again, and subside again. I figured I probably needed to go back to the dentist and see what the hell was happening. Now waking up earlier that I usually do on a weekday to go to the dentist on the weekend isn’t my idea of fun, so I was probably a bit grumpy on my way to the appointment. A small consolation is the dentist office is downstairs, so I walk about five minutes to get there.
Once I got there, I explained to the dentist my situation. He almost immediately thought he knew what the issue was. He believed that the two fillings were rubbing against each other, causing pressure on each tooth when I was biting down on food. The solution was to grind down the fillings slightly to get a bit more space in between them. Since he was only going to remove a small portion of the fillings, no freezing was required.
He did a bit of drilling and then checked my bite with that paper that they make you bite down on. He did this a few times and drilled a bit more and checked my bite until he was satisfied with it. He asked if my bite felt fine but honestly, I couldn’t tell because the pain only came if I was chewing on hard foods and it never was a problem when I was biting down on nothing. I sorta just left it in his hands and hoped he’d done enough.
I was out of the chair and released into the wild at about 9:18am, which is an indication of how fast things went. Since it was this early and I was now wide awake, I went and got a breakfast sandwich and a coffee. Once I got home, I was surprised that I could chew and bite down on either side of my mouth without any issue. The dentist had fixed the issue and correctly diagnosed the problem. He also decided not to charge me for anything, so that was a bonus.
I spent all weekend eating normally again which I was thankful for. This was the first time I’ve had to get a filling adjusted after the procedure. I wonder how common this is.