Hi,

Free advice is worth what you get, but I wonder if the practitioners on
the list might comment on my situation...

Five weeks ago I got a sharp stabbing pain in my lower jaw while
chewing something (a sandwich, I think).  Four days later I was in at
the dentist, where I learned that I had cracked filling, with a cavity
that had developed beneath it.  After removing the filling, the dentist
learned that I also had a slightly cracked tooth.  He prepped me for a
crown, put some medicine on the top of the tooth (Gerestore?), and
installed a temporary crown.  I was to leave the crown on for a month,
and then come back for either a simple crown or a root canal and a
crown.

I was in a fair amount of pain the first week, which I managed with
aspirin.  It wasn't so bad that I couldn't sleep, but I wasn't sleeping
great.  After a week the pain eased off and it seemed like I was kind
of in the clear.

Second week was better, and I took no medication at all.   I do recall
that in this period the tooth was incredibly sensitive to cold
temperatures - I had an ice cream cone that I didn't enjoy that week.

Midway through the third week, some pain came back.  I called the doc,
and he suggested that I try single-dosage ibuprofen and call back over
the weekend.  I took the ibuprofen (and its close cousin, naproxen, at
night), and that seemed to knock the pain down pretty effectively.  I
was able to sleep OK again.  The doc's take on this was that the
ibuprofen was mostly acting to reduce inflammation, and thus not
indicative of an abcess.

By the way, the ibuprofen seemed to have an odd side effect with me: I
had to take it continuously every four to six hours, or else there
would be what I called exit pain, and entry pain.  Exit pain was a pain
that would occur as the drug wore off, and entry pain was pain that
occurred when I took the drug after being off it for 8 hours or more.
The funny thing about the entry/exit pain was that other teeth, like
teeth on the upper side of my jaws, would hurt.  It took me a while to
figure out that this was what was happening, but once I got to taking
single-dosage ibuprofen steadily the pain leveled out, and diminished.

After four weeks I went in to see the dentist again.  I took an
ibuprofen at 5 am, but let it expire without taking another before my 1
pm appointment.  I did an ice cream sensitivity/ hot tea test just
before the appointment, and had no pain from either. I was still
sensitive to him tapping on it, however.  I had been pretty pain-free
for 48 hours since going onto steady ibuprofen, but it wasn't clear
whether a root canal was called for.  We made an agreement to wait
another two weeks without disturbing the temporary crown.

For the past ten days I've been off any medication, and not had any
issues.  I can chew on it without pain, though the temporary crown
seems a little high so I chew carefully.

I guess my worry, which is probably just me over-worrying, is this: is
this too good to be true,  meaning that the tooth has just settled down
completely, or is it possible that the tooth nerve has just died? or
???  In the five weeks of this saga I've never had pain on the
underside of my jaw, nor swollen glands (that I can tell, anyway).  It
seems like I should be in the clear... but is there any reason not to
just go ahead with the crown and be done with it?

Thanks for your advice.

Kurt