Emergency dentistry · Deepcar
Pain after a filling: what is normal, what is not, and what we do about it
Some soreness after a filling is expected and settles on its own. Some is a sign the filling needs adjusting, and occasionally the tooth needs more than a filling. This guide tells the three apart.
Clinically reviewed by Dr Ibraheem Ijaz, Principal Dentist · GDC 301711 · Last reviewed April 2026
This is the long version. If you are in pain tonight and want a quick steer on whether it needs an emergency slot, our shorter symptom page on pain after a filling answers that in a couple of minutes. Come back here for the full explanation of why a filled tooth hurts, what each kind of pain means and how it is dealt with.
Day by day: what normal settling feels like
A filling is minor surgery on a living tooth. Decay is drilled out, the cavity is cleaned and dried, and a material is bonded or packed in. The nerve inside the tooth sits a millimetre or two from the floor of the cavity, sometimes less, and it has been vibrated, heated, dried and coated in chemicals. It responds the way any tissue does to being worked on: it becomes inflamed for a while. The word for this is pulpitis, and in its mild, reversible form it is normal.
The pattern matters more than the intensity. Pain that is getting better each day, however sharp, is the tooth recovering. Pain that is the same or worse on day five as on day one is not, and is worth a phone call. The deeper the filling, the longer the tail: a small filling in enamel should be silent within a day or two, while a filling that sat within a whisker of the nerve can grumble for weeks and still turn out fine.
| When | What is normal | What is not |
|---|---|---|
| First few hours | Numbness wearing off; ache in the jaw or gum where the injection went in; the tooth feels odd or ‘tall’ | Nothing yet; wait for the anaesthetic to wear off before judging the bite |
| Days 1–3 | Sharp twinge to cold or sweet that fades within seconds; mild ache when chewing on it | The filling is the first thing to touch when you close; pain that throbs on its own |
| Days 4–7 | Sensitivity clearly easing each day | Sensitivity the same or worse; pain lingering after hot drinks |
| Week 2 | Occasional twinge to very cold things only | Any pain on biting; spontaneous pain; pain waking you |
| Weeks 3–4 | Nothing, or trivial cold sensitivity in a very deep filling | Anything that still stops you chewing on that side |
| Beyond 4 weeks | A very deep filling may stay a little cold-sensitive for two or three months, improving slowly | Pain that is stable or worsening needs looking at |
A high bite: the most common fixable cause
Teeth are held in their sockets by a ligament that is astonishingly sensitive to pressure; it can feel a difference in height of a few hundredths of a millimetre, thinner than a sheet of paper. When you are numb and the dentist asks you to bite on the marking paper, your jaw does not always close the way it does when you eat. If the new filling is left even slightly proud, that tooth hits first every time you close, hundreds of times a day, and the ligament becomes bruised. The tooth aches on biting, feels tender to tap, and after a few days may become sensitive to cold as well, because the bruised ligament irritates the nerve.
How to tell: the tooth hurts when you bite together on nothing, and it hurts on that tooth specifically rather than the whole side. Often you can feel that it touches first. It does not hurt spontaneously and does not wake you. What we do: this is a two-minute fix. We mark the bite with articulating paper, polish the high spot off the filling, and check again. The ligament then heals over a few days. If your filling feels high, ring us and we will check and adjust it; it is a quick visit and it is the single most common reason for post-filling pain that we see. Our page on occlusal adjustment describes the process.
Hot, cold and sweet sensitivity after a filling
Cold sensitivity is the most common complaint and the least worrying. Dentine is full of microscopic tubes running from the surface to the nerve, each filled with fluid. Cold makes the fluid contract and move, and that movement fires the nerve. After a filling, the freshly cut dentine is more open than before and the nerve underneath is already irritated, so cold drinks and even breathing in on a winter morning can make you wince. Bonded white fillings can also add a little sensitivity in the first days because the material shrinks fractionally as it sets, tugging on the tooth. All of this fades as the tooth lays down new dentine over the cut surface, which takes a few weeks.
The test we use, and you can use at home, is duration. Cold pain that vanishes within a few seconds of the cold going away is reversible pulpitis: the nerve is irritated but healthy. Pain that lingers for 10 to 30 seconds or longer after the stimulus has gone, pain from heat rather than cold, or pain that starts on its own with no trigger, points to irreversible pulpitis, where the nerve is inflamed past recovery. Sweet sensitivity on its own usually means there is a gap at the edge of the filling letting sugar reach the dentine, and is worth having checked. Sensitive-teeth toothpaste rubbed onto the tooth and left there, and avoiding very cold drinks for a fortnight, are the right self-care. A tooth that has been sensitive for over a month without improving needs looking at; our tooth sensitivity page covers the other causes.
Pain that seems to come from the wrong tooth
The nerves of the upper and lower back teeth on one side all report to the same branch of the trigeminal nerve, and the brain is poor at telling them apart. Pain from an inflamed lower molar is often felt in an upper tooth, and vice versa; it can also be felt in the ear or the temple. So a filling that was placed in one tooth can appear to make a different tooth hurt, and, more often, a tooth that has just been filled gets blamed for pain that is coming from an untreated neighbour, typically one with a crack or deep decay that the new filling has nothing to do with.
This is why we do not simply take the filling out when a tooth hurts afterwards. At the visit we cold-test and tap each tooth on that side in turn, and we take an X-ray of the neighbours as well as the filled tooth. Around one in several cases of ‘the filling you did is hurting’ turns out to be the tooth next door. Pain that you cannot pin to one tooth, or that moves between upper and lower, is a strong clue that referral is happening.
Signs the filling itself has failed
Occasionally the problem is mechanical rather than biological. Look for:
A gap or ledge
A piece of filling or tooth that has broken away
Sharp pain on biting that is worse when you let go
A filling that is loose
Food packing
A failed filling is replaced. A white filling is £150–£220 and a silver filling £120–£160. Where the tooth is cracked or the walls are too thin to hold another filling, the honest fix is a crown (£750–£1,000), because it holds the tooth together rather than relying on it to hold the filling. We will tell you which we think you need and why.
When a sore filling becomes a root canal
Every deep filling carries a chance that the nerve, already damaged by the decay that got close to it, does not recover. The dentist can only remove the decay; they cannot see how much the nerve has been injured. Sometimes it heals, sometimes it becomes irreversibly inflamed, and sometimes it dies quietly over weeks or months. The signs that the nerve is not going to recover are:
- Pain lingering for more than half a minute after something hot or cold.
- Pain that starts on its own, especially at night or on lying down, and throbs.
- Pain that heat brings on and cold relieves; this is a dying nerve.
- Pain that stops completely after a period of severe ache, then a few weeks later the tooth becomes tender to bite on or a gum boil appears. The nerve has died and infection is forming at the root.
- The tooth darkening in colour.
None of this means the filling was done badly. It means the tooth was closer to the edge than anyone could tell, and it is the reason we warn people with deep fillings that a root canal may follow. When it does, the treatment is root canal treatment: the inflamed or dead nerve is removed, the canals are cleaned and sealed, and the tooth is kept. The emergency first stage, which takes the pain away, is from £200 and the completed treatment from £450; our associate Nik carries it out under a dental microscope. The filling itself is usually kept or replaced as part of the work, and a back tooth that has been root-treated is best crowned afterwards to stop it splitting. The alternative is extraction (£120–£260), and we will set out both.
When to come back, and what we will do
Ring us if any of these apply, whether we did the filling or another practice did:
- The filling is high, or the tooth hurts to bite on after the numbness has worn off. Do not wait for it to wear in; it will not, and the tooth is being bruised in the meantime.
- Sensitivity is not improving after a week, or is getting worse at any point.
- Pain lingers after hot drinks, throbs on its own or wakes you.
- Any swelling of the gum or face, or a bad taste.
- A piece has broken off, the filling feels loose, or there is a gap you can feel.
- It has been a month and the tooth is still not comfortable to chew on.
At the visit we ask you to describe the pain and its timing, then check the bite with marking paper, cold-test and tap the tooth and its neighbours, look at the filling margins under magnification, and take an X-ray to see how close the filling sits to the nerve and whether there is any change at the root. That tells us which of the situations above you are in. If it is the bite, we check and adjust it at that visit. If it is a filling problem, we replace it. If the nerve is involved, we explain the options and can start the emergency root canal stage the same day so you leave out of pain. If you had the filling done here, ring the desk and tell us; if it was elsewhere, book the £30 emergency examination, which includes the X-rays, and we will take it from there.
Meanwhile: paracetamol and ibuprofen as directed on the packet, chew on the other side, keep the tooth clean, and avoid extremes of temperature. Do not stop brushing the tooth because it is tender; plaque left on a fresh filling makes the gum sore and adds a second source of pain.
Questions, answered
Common questions
How long should a tooth hurt after a filling?
Mild sensitivity to cold and slight tenderness on chewing for a few days is normal, and up to two to four weeks for a deep filling, as long as it is improving. Pain that is stable or worsening after a week should be checked.
Why does my filling hurt when I bite down?
Most often the filling is fractionally high and that tooth is hitting first, bruising the ligament around the root. It is fixed in minutes by adjusting the bite. Less often it is a crack in the tooth, which needs a different repair.
Is it normal for a filling to be sensitive to cold?
Yes, if the sensitivity fades within seconds of the cold going away and is easing over the first week or two. Cold pain that lingers, or heat pain, suggests the nerve is inflamed and needs looking at.
Can a filling cause a toothache weeks later?
Yes. A nerve damaged by deep decay can die weeks or months after the filling. Throbbing, night pain, a tooth tender to bite on or a gum boil appearing later all point to this, and the tooth usually then needs root canal treatment.
Will the high spot wear down on its own?
No. Modern filling materials are as hard as enamel and do not wear in. The tooth keeps being bruised until the filling is adjusted, so ring and have it checked.
Does pain after a filling mean the dentist did it wrong?
Usually not. Some soreness is the tooth responding to treatment, a high bite is easily corrected, and a nerve that dies after a deep filling was damaged by the decay rather than the filling. The important thing is to have it checked rather than wait.
Why does a different tooth hurt after my filling?
Teeth on the same side share a nerve pathway and the brain often misplaces the pain. Either the filled tooth is referring pain to a neighbour, or a neighbouring tooth with its own problem is being blamed. Testing each tooth in turn tells us which.
How much does it cost to fix pain after a filling?
If we placed the filling, ring us and we will check and adjust the bite. For fillings done elsewhere the emergency examination with X-rays is £30. Replacing a filling is £120–£220, and root canal treatment, if the nerve is involved, from £450.
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