Pain After a Filling When Biting Down

Why am I Experiencing Pain After a Filling?

If you are experiencing pain after you have had a recent filling done, it is usually down to 1 of two causes.

It may be that the filling is “high.” Or it could be down to an infection inside the root.

If the Filling is high

If the filling is high, it means that that is the first point of contact when you close your mouth together in order for your teeth to meet. Under normal circumstances, when you close your mouth together, all of your teeth should meet simultaneously at the same time.

Sometimes when you have had a new filling done, even though the dentist will check your bite to make sure that your teeth are meeting evenly, it is not possible to locate the bite accurately because your mouth is numbed up or your jaw is in a different position as compared to a normal resting position.

You will only know about this when you get home and the numbness has worn off. Usually, in most cases, the patient will automatically know that the bite isn’t correct and that is the reason why the tooth becomes tender to biting.

In some cases also, especially if the discrepancy is only minor, your jaw will automatically adjust for the filling to wear down slightly and everything will return back to normal. If after four or five days, the tooth still feels tender to bite on and you think that the bite is incorrect, it is simple for you to book a new appointment with the dentist and the dentist will quickly adjust the bite for you and you should notice immediate relief from the symptoms.

If the Filling is Deep

The other time when a tooth is painful to bite on after having had a filling done is when the pain is coming from the root of a tooth.

It will usually occur if the filling was deep and the dentist may have warned you of this either before the filling or after the filling has been placed. The dentist may have said words such as, “this is a deep filling and the tooth may be painful or sensitive afterwards.”

The reason why the tooth becomes painful to bite on is that the pulpal inflammation from the trauma of having a filling done causes bacteria to produce toxins which cause irritation of the periodontal ligament around the tooth itself.  In these cases, it then becomes necessary to carry out a root canal treatment. It is best to do this sooner rather than later because a dental abscess can subsequently form. Your Dentist will need a radiograph and then carry out a root canal treatment accordingly.