Is it normal to file down a tooth that was causing pain from a crack in the crown over a 3 year old root canal? i had a crack in a crown over a 3 yr old root canal and pain was coming from this crack and my dentist said it needed to be filed down which ca

Tough : Tough question to answer because of a lack of information and an inability to examine you and x-rays of the tooth. It is not unusual to sustain a fracture of a root canal treated tooth as they tend to dry out with time and be at risk of fracture. If the tooth was painful, the dentist may have filed the tooth down to reduce your discomfort until such time as it could be permanently treated or extracted. If there is an infection associated with the fractured tooth, then the prognosis is poor and the tooth should be extracted. It is unlikely that filing down the tooth caused the infection, instead it was probably present and just worsened with time.

Your : Your dentist filed down your tooth to take it out of occlusion, in this way it would not be hitting the opposite tooth, which would cause you pain. The filing down of the tooth did not cause the abscess... The fracture which allowed food and bacteria under the gumline did. What was discussed with your dentist? Is the tooth restorable, or does it need to be extracted? Did he/she give you another appointment to extract it, or did they refer you to an oral surgeon? Were you given antibiotics for your infection? Only your dentist knows for sure what the prognosis is of this particular tooth. He may be planning to remove the fractured piece and restore the rest of the tooth with a crown, or he may feel the tooth is unrestorable and needs to be extracted. These are things that should be discussed with your dentist.

An : An abscess takes time to develop, so it is impossible that the filing caused it. When diagnosing the source of pain, we often try to eliminate it. If a tooth is reduced out of occlusion and pain continues, then the bite can be ruled out. In the case of cracked tooth syndrome, the first step is always to reduce the tooth. It sounds as if things were brewing and the adjustment set the rest in motion.

It depends: If the crack is the, source of the pain, his treatment is very temporary.

Cracked tooth protoc: The protocol for a cracked tooth that needs a root canal is to place a bonded core over the root canal, remove the tooth from occlusion( what you call grinding down) and then restoring with a crown. I also recommend light centric occlusion only in the permanent crown. Your dentist will understand what that means.