Cavities and my teeth - Page 2

On August 04 2011 10:25 eshlow wrote:


Gonna drill it, if not root canal it.

Likely won't be painful if you're not feeling pain, but has the potential to be.

On August 04 2011 10:26 udgnim wrote:


dentist will take x-rays to get an idea of depth of tooth decay

1. you should just need a filling. if you don't feel any pain or sensitivity, the decay probably is still in the enamel and hasn't reached the dentin. silver amalgam fillings are cheaper and last longer but the dentist will remove more healthy tooth material to put in a silver amalgam filling.

composite fillings (white) are more expensive and don't last as long as silver amalgam fillings but doesn't need as much healthy tooth material removed to be put in.

2. if your molar is in as bad a state as you say, then you might need a crown. it's completely up to what the dentist sees in the x-ray and visually of the tooth.

ideally, you should want a filling done because if crown work is done on a tooth with a healthy root pulp, there is potential that the trauma from the crown work can be too much for the root pulp to take and kill it and then the dentist would have to perform a root canal and put in a new crown.

if you're not feeling any type of tooth ache from the molar, you should not need a root canal. the dentist may still give you a warning that a root canal might need to be performed if the decay appears near the root chamber though.


I went about 10 years without seeing the dentist and got absolutely owned for it. I had to have 1 tooth removed and developed an abscess with that tooth. I've had 6 old fillings replaced because they've all developed some sort of decay under them (fillings break down over time) and will have my 7th and final old filling replaced this upcoming Friday. I've also had 2-3 new fillings done. all this work has taken place over the past 3-4 months.

I've learned my lesson. always go see the dentist every 6 months. just because your teeth don't hurt doesn't mean they are not fucked up.

my diet has changed too. I basically just drink water or milk now and avoid drinking anything sugary. I can't eat anything that is too chewy or requires a decent amount of bite force because I have deep and large fillings.

if I eat anything that is too chewy, then I risk putting too much pressure on my root and producing a tooth ache from an irritated pulp.

if I eat anything that requires a decent amount of bite force, then I risk a root pulp toothache and cracking my teeth because there isn't enough tooth structure to support the force of the bite.

On August 04 2011 10:27 Probe1 wrote:
I hate brushing my tongue. All I can taste during breakfast is toothpaste and waking up pisses me off enough that I don't need another reason. I just stick to mouth wash for that.


Hell, half the time I don't wake up at home I just stick with mouth wash. My teeth definitely aren't in any way attractive but they aren't falling out. Oh wells can't have everything.


I don't know much about orthodontics but I imagine you can expect some kind of procedure to remove the plaque or whatever has grown on your molar. I doubt it's a cluster of dead nerves.. as the picture wasn't taken with a microscope.

But yeah, it'll suck but you'll probably get opiates. And that's a awesome silver lining.

On August 04 2011 10:27 Djzapz wrote:
Sucks... I don't know how I'm so lucky with my teeth - I used to brush only once a day, in the morning, and ate a lot of acidic food and never had a cavity on my "real" teeth.

However my brother did hit me in the face with a heavy flashlight a while ago, cracking one of my front teeth in a half diagonally. Having it repaired with plastic is quite expensive too. Also, dead nerves are better than live ones, seriously =(...

Hurts a lot!

On August 04 2011 10:29 semantics wrote:
I went to the dentist after 2 years once, they found 3 major cavities and about 12 smaller just start off cavities, needless to say i bought a electric tooth brush and mouth wash the next day.
Depending on the amount of work it's usually broken into 2-3 ish hour sessions from my experience they just dont fuck up your whole mouth at once usually doing it in sections. The cavity can just be filled they might also want to scape your teeth below the gum line to remove any bacteria and shiz then shoot you fool of antiseptic usually marked as a deep cleaning where they numb you then clean under your gum line so you bleed out like a mofo for the next couple hours then saying you need to floss regularly which i put at once a day at night before i go to bed. If you just have a plain dead tooth they probably will extract it and then you can replace it with like a vernier or something.


It's not painful but you can tell someone is rummaging around in your mouth. Also i always hated the water although its to prevent them from ripping skin makes me feel like im drowning for an hourr.

On August 04 2011 10:32 EKnaus wrote:


I wouldn't doubt the possibility of a root canal [drilling into the tooth to pull out a dead nerve to prevent nerve infection or something among those lines]. If they can save the tooth, they can just fill in where they drilled [or the hole].

From experience, my root canal took about an hour [wasn't from a rotting tooth; I was elbowed in the mouth] and it was a relatively easy process. Just hope the nerve can be easily removed if you need to get a root canal ^-^v

On August 04 2011 10:50 Torenhire wrote:
The last time I went to the dentist to get a twisted tooth fixed, the stupid nub pressed the syringe before it was in my gum and got the numbing goodness all down my throat and tongue.

I was all like HURRRRJGGHGHLLLLL all dayyyy TT

On August 04 2011 10:55 Probulous wrote:
I fucking hate the dentist...

I am sorry, anyone who voluntarily spent a long ass time studying and huge mound of cash, just so they can play around in some else's mouth is fucked up.

I know that they are necessary but I just can't stand having those creepy white-coated bastards shove all manner of mechanical monstrosities into my mouth. To make matters worse, once they have injected you with god-aweful tasting anaesthetic they have the audacity to ask you if you feel anything. I'm a drooling freak, how the hell am I supposed to answer that. I can barely keep my tongue from taking a trip down the old throat highway, never mind talking. And dentists are supposed to be intelligent?

They are sadistic buggers. "You feel that?" Of course I feel that you just ripped a chunk of my body from me. They poke and prod exactly where it hurts and then just when you think it is over, they bring the dreaded weapon. That whiny, insect buzzing hacksaw. Following by the deep rough grinding thing, that makes your toes curl and your spine shake. It just aint right.

I reckon it is a public health conspiracy. Tuskegee all over again, but with less racial bias and more probing. Screw alien abduction, I am certain dentists are selected at birth by the authorities and are trained in the dark arts of medical experimentation.

Don't trust them!

Rant over..

+ Show Spoiler [PS] +

On August 04 2011 10:35 Torte de Lini wrote:


Holy shit, my savior!

1. Will I get a choice between silver or white? I thought these were permanent and not something that needs replacing every so often @_@

2. Fuck, a root canal? Sounds fucking serious. This all sounds very lengthy and difficult. Makes me want to just suffer the consequences, but I guess it's an obligation.

I don't feel any pain, I have to try really hard to actually get that nerve sensation of pain. I know what it is, I've felt it before, but no pain in here at all. Will I be given choices or preference? They one time try to advocate getting my wisdom teeth pulled but they never really were serious about it and I felt they were trying to extort from me.

As for your anecdote. That's really enlightening. I don't drink alcohol, so I just drink a lot of sugar or ice cream. It's to cope with my lack of sugar from when I used to eat a lot of candy. I'm trying to recede from it, but I'm kind of hooked on sugar in the sense that I have trouble functioning properly without the intake and I get either light-headed or dizzy/very hungry.

Right now, I can't eat thick steaks because it makes my lips very irritable and then I bite on them, so I avoid thick steaks and only very thin ones. Other than that, I'm a pasta kind of guy.

This really really helps me out.

On August 04 2011 11:02 udgnim wrote:


1. I'd assume you can choose what type of filling you want. fillings are not permanent. they break down over time and will need to be replaced, otherwise tiny food particles or liquid starts seeping below a filling and decay your teeth under the filling.

it's too bad I didn't start researching into this until my dentist told me how screwed up my teeth were.

2. a root canal involves drilling into your tooth to the root pulp chamber and completely cleaning it out and putting in filling material. once the root pulp is cleaned out, your tooth is essentially dead from that point and becomes brittle, so a crown is highly recommended to support the remaining tooth structure.

if you're not experiencing a tooth ache, then you should not need a root canal.

also, crowns aren't permanent too. they have a longer lifetime than fillings though and can last for quite a while (decades) depending on crown quality and how well you take care of it (diet, brushing, flossing).

On August 04 2011 11:11 wo1fwood wrote:
I just recently had a root canal! Wait, I shouldn't be happy about that...

Anyway, when you get a root canal you have to go to an endodontist to do the procedure. They first test to see if your root is indeed dead, and you'll know because you won't feel anything in the tooth when they touch it (it's some cold liquid or the like and a gauge of sorts if I remember correctly).

If they confirm this, then they get you super numb (you can't feel anything at all) and begin to excavate the pulp completely so that there are no nerves left in the tooth. After that they put a temporary cap in the tooth and wait until your dentist can fashion a permanent solution (if they do it in one session, depends on the severity of it), or just make a filling if that's possible, but you can't chew on that side of your mouth until the permanent filling is in, which is a pain in the ass.

As for filling preferance, I'd go with silver, the white ones look more natural for sure, but they have a history of not lasting nearly as long, and need to be replaced more often (paraphrased from my dentist).

A root canal sucks, but the people who do this (endodontists) do it day in and out, and my guy was pro, I never felt at all uneasy or nervous around him, and he answered all of my questions (i'm fairly inquisitive), they were all quite professional.

As a slight aside, I'm only guessing that where you are the dental plans are relatively similar to the USA, but everyone is soo right, even if you don't have dental insurance, it only costs about $150 USD for me to get my two cleanings and 1 x-ray per year, so it's more than worth avoiding what eventually costed ~$1200, and that doesn't include the cost of a crown, which I didn't get. A root canal is an expensive ordeal.

Hope it turns out well man!

On August 04 2011 11:44 AppleTart wrote:
With this this kind of damage on your tooth, you will get a crown not a filling. My mom had a cavity like yours a few years ago. If the cavity is too large, they will remove most of the tooth and give you a crown that's made from silver or platinum or something. That's why you see some people with like a metal or gold tooth once in awhile in the back of their mouth.