Dental Malpractice Lawyers | Do I Need A Root Canal? Is This Dental Malpractice?

Do I Need A Root Canal? Is This Dental Malpractice?

3 weeks ago I went to the dentist for a checkup. I was told I needed two fillings. One of my old fillings fell off some time ago and it needed to re-filled. I get the fillings done. The new filling feels fine, and gives no pain at all. However, the re-filled tooth gives me sharp pain when I bight down on any type of food(soft or hard). My tooth is now very sensitive to different temperatures(hot/cold drinks make my tooth/gums hurt). Anyway, the dentist asks me to give it a week for recovery. After a full week, no change in statust. I go back to the dentist and the filling is filed down. She thought the filling was probably too high. X-rays were taken(and im assuming my tooth wasnt cracked since they didnt mention that). Now the dentist says I might need a root canal. She asked to wait about 10 days to see if the pain was caused by a high filling. 3 days past since then, and now I get severe pain to the entire right side of mouth. Eating/drinking is painful. Do I ned a root canal?

Related posts:

  1. Root Canal Done Wrong! What Should I Do??please Read Detail Below For Story…?
  2. Dental Instrument Broke And Left Behind After A Root Canal.?
  3. Dental Malpractice?? Uk?
  4. Dental Malpractice/fraud?
  5. Dental Malpractice Case?

Filed Under Dental Malpractice Lawyers | 5 Comments

Tagged With , , , , ,

Comments

5 Responses to “Do I Need A Root Canal? Is This Dental Malpractice?”

  1. Pareen D on February 15th, 2010 12:00 am

    the tooth that was re-filled may have had decay in it (that’s why fillings usually fall out, bacteria leakes under the margin of the filling and cavity spreads). when she removed the decay she got close to the pulp chamber (where the nerve is) and that is why you’re having pain. the tooth wasn’t hurting you before because the pulp chamber wasn’t being impinged on, but if it had been untreated, the decay would have eventually invaded the pulp, causing either severe pain and/or an abscess. Once a tooth is drilled into, you want all the decay out, so if in the process the pulp is exposed, you will need a root canal. Or if the pulp is just impinged on and is causing pain, you will need a root canal. Some people have very deep fillings and are fine, some aren’t. Material also matters-tooth colored fillings (composite) have more sensitivity associated with them versus the amalgam (silver) fillings. Composite is technique sensitive, if during placement there was an air bubble or the material wasn’t light cured long enough, it would cause a lot of pain. She may want to remove the composite and place a medication (IRM) in the tooth first to see if that was the problem. If that doesn’t help, then next step, root canal. Or, the tooth may settle down, but if the pain is not decreasing at all, then don’t suffer, go get the root canal. If it was only hurting when you bit down, then that would be attributed to a high filling, but hot/cold sensitivity lingering for more than about 15seconds indicates the nerve is involved.
    What do you mean malpractice? A dentist treated your tooth and because you may need a routine procedure (due mostly to your neglect for not having the filling replaced as soon as it came out) it’s malpractice?
    The only way they would have known you needed a root canal before treatment is if you were already in pain or the x-ray clearly showed cavity invasion into the pulp.

  2. Jack on February 15th, 2010 6:43 am

    You are the victim of negligence and fraudulent concealment. What surely happened here is that the dentist damaged the tooth by causing it to crack in the root area when he drilled thru so that when you bite down, you get the horrible pain. This is fraud, you should go to ANOTHER DENTIST (in another city if you live in a small town), dont tell him who the dentist was that did the root canal, ask him why it hurts so much. If he is honest he will tell you that the root is cracked and the whole tooth must be extracted.
    You got ripped off, lied to, cheated by having to pay for work that damaged you, and did not help you, and have suffered.
    Get the first dentist’s x rays and a copy of his chart without advising him why you need it. If he insists on knowing, tell him you want to get your health insurance to reimburse you for the cost of the root canal. Just get those x rays and records, and keep them from all persons.
    Then go to a lawyer, and sue. Its worth $10,000-$25000 for the tooth loss but you can ask for punitive damages based on the dentist’s fraudulent concealment and get an extra $100,000

  3. Jack on February 15th, 2010 7:27 am

    No this isn’t malpractice. Cracks usually cant not be seen on an x-ray or by the naked eye. You mentioned that the old filling had fallen out. Well fillings don’t just fall out unless there is something wrong with it, usually recurrent decay. Anytime a tooth is drilled on with something that spins as fast as a dentists drill does, it does cause a certain degree of trauma to the tooth. Sometimes this trauma is in the form of sensitivity for a few days, other times, it results in the tooth requiring a rootcanal to take away the feeling in the tooth. Teeth do not “like” to be drilled on. It is not a natural thing to it. The nerves are sometimes traumatized. You could have had a crack in the tooth, that was deepened just by the vibration of the drill. If you had simply left the tooth alone, and not redone the filling, you would have probably eventually needed a rootcanal anyways, because if it had recurrent decay in it that caused the filling to fall out, then the decay would have gotten deeper and deeper and eventually went into the pulp chamber. If the filling that fell out was a metal one, you probably did have small cracks in the tooth. That is just something that happens over time when a metal filling thermocycles with changes in temperature from the foods and drinks you consume.
    The fact that it was a bit high may have contributed to the trauma of the nerve, however when a patient is numb it is sometimes hard to adjust the filling perfectly and they do sometimes have to return to have more adjustments made.

  4. Jack on February 15th, 2010 10:30 am

    You may need a root canal and it is not a malpractice.Hold on as long as you can.Sometimes it take two weeks for the tooth to come down.Ask the dentist if he has used a good cavity liner.Sometimes when the filling is close to the nerve,it wakes the nerve up and it doesn’t except the filling.In my 11 year experience i have seen a lot,with different dentists.

  5. Jack on February 15th, 2010 1:37 pm

    Sounds like you do since it seems you
    have an exposed nerve.
    They should have discovered this at the start

Leave a Reply




Powered by Yahoo! Answers