Can a changed bite cause a toothache?

I the past several months two people came in with a similar complaint. After some recent dental work involving a new crown they had some pain that wouldn't go away. In both cases, initially their tooth was fine, but after several days it started to hurt. I checked the bite and in a habitual closing position it was fine, but in lateral excursions it was hitting. In both cases I adjusted their bite in excursions and asked them to call me back in a day or two.

Both patients reported back that their tooth had stopped hurting. Although a simple bite adjustment doesn't always do the trick, it can't hurt and if it works it saves the patient a possible unnecessary root canal. I should add that only a small minority ( in my experience probably less than 10%)  recently crowned teeth actually end up needing root canal. This happens  if the patient has pain that won't eventually go away or develops radiographic evidence of an endodontic abscess .  When this happens a root canal usually solves the problem.

 Many dentists will adjust a bite on a recently crowned tooth that is hurting before recommending a root canal and only then if the bite adjustment doesn't work will they recommend a root canal as a solution. It only makes sense that if a tooth is in a hyper occlusion in centric (habitual bite) or one of its excursions that it can be the cause of tooth pain so why not make a small bite adjustment first before pulling the root canal trigger.








from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2018/03/can-changed-bite-cause-toothache.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/

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