Crack therapy

Here is today's first patient of the day...young woman with a filling in a lower molar...reporting that she has pain when she bites...
pain on biting usually means a crack in a tooth which transmits the pain to the nerve...you can see on the x-ray that this is a moderate sized filling and the nerve seems healthy.

Clinical exam of the tooth shows that there is a possible crack, but it is difficult to visualize(fig. 1)...adding a little indicator solution shows off the cracked area more dramatically(fig. 2)

This tooth will need a crown or cap to fully restore...so after local anesthetic was administered I proceeded to prep the tooth for a full crown. As you can see there was additional decay readily apparent once the tooth was prepared.

The decay was removed and a temporary crown was placed and an impression was taken to have a new crown made....
check back in about 10 days and you will see the final result!