Last Tuesday I went to my dentist to replace a filling because I had mild sensitivity.

She did a panoramic x ray a week before and didn’t notice any cavity. Then did the regular cleaning and another local scan on the lower right side, where the filling was. She said there isn’t any visible cavity (on the 30th tooth) but we can replace the filling as it was quite old and pretty big. While she drilled to replace it, she found a cavity pretty close to the gum between molars 30 and 31, so she repaired it and placed a filling. While she was drying around before placing the filling I felt intense pain and I actually teared up while she worked, it hurt pretty bad. She injected more anaesthetic but it didn’t seem to work, I heard her saying ‘I don’t understand why is it so sensitive, I injected anaesthetic in 7 places’ to the nurse. She also complained that there was a lot of saliva (she used a rubber dam that broke badly from what I’ve heard her talking to the nurse and my gum was bleeding quite a bit) under the dam and around the tooth. Could the filling have gotten contaminated with saliva? I was just very tensed up because of the pain, before going in to replace the filling I just assumed the mild sensitivity was from grinding my teeth at night while wearing retainers.

But since then, the new filling is sensitive to cold still and the places she injected the anesthetic into are still pretty sore. Also the 3rd tooth started being a bit sensitive to cold (the one directly above the 30th, it has a filling as well).

Should I go back to check with her or is this sensitivity normal? She is an endodontist and she didn’t mention anything about a follow-up visit or anything, she just said that it will hurt when the anaesthesia wears off because my gum had some inflammation.