Pain after temporary filling

[Alicewilliams]

I'd love some advice on this.
When I developed a senstive tooth my dentist said he would try to fill it but becauser it was already heavily filled he might not be able to -- buthe wouldn't know until he removed the old filling.

It turned out he couldn't fill it or do root canal work as the decay was beneath gum level so he put in a temporary filling and booked me in for an extraction in 4 weeks time.

This was two days ago. Last night the tooth began aching and is still aching today.
The dentist said if I had any problems (which he didn't expect) I should go back straight away and he'd give me an antibiotic--only it's now the weekend and the practice is closed until Monday.

Is this aching likely to be an infection, or could the dentist's drilling have irritated the nerve? I'm not sure whether to keep taking pain killers and hope the pain will go away or try an out-of hours service.

[Dr Mohsen J. Esfahani]

Thank you for your post.

Its difficult for us to say if you have infection on that tooth or that you have pain as a result of deep drilling. Normally a dentist would not overdrill a tooth unless there was decay there in the first place. I think it would be wise to see the out of hours dentist if your own dentist is not available to see if the tooth needs first stage root canal or perhaps an extraction.