Antidentite

 Yes, stolen from a Seinfeld episode, no malice intended. Among my many dental procedures performed over many years, was a large filling on an upper  molar. After a number of years, a piece of the filling on the inner side of the tooth chipped off. No worries, assured my then dentist, it's an outer chip and the remainder is intact and will not break any further. And it didn't, for a while. But then, another piece broke off the filling, and some discomfort started to appear in that area. Yes, said the new dentist, that filling was so large and now breaking off that the tooth needs to have a crown.   And so we went ahead. I have had several teeth crowned   in the past, probably more even than several; the procedure was always the same. the ailing tooth is treated, a temporary cap is formed and installed, left in place for a period of time, maybe 3 or 4 weeks, and then the permanent crown is installed. All good, so far. 

  For this last (or I should say, latest) procedure, all seemed much the same ---at first. The tooth was treated, but at the next appointment, I noticed that when the dentist removed the temporary crown/cap, I could feel that the remaining tooth seemed to be still there. All my previously crowned  teeth had been drilled right down to the gumline, with apparently only the root left intact. I asked the performing dentist  about the difference, and he said, yes, he had left the old filling in place. He went on to say that he did not believe the warnings about those old mercury fillings, and added that he had drilled a hole in the new crown in case the tooth root needed treatment in the future, which is always a possibility. 

 The tooth felt fine, a relief to be able to chew on that side without the pressure pain, for just about 2 months, when the same type of pain returned, a momentary stabbing pain when anything pressed on that tooth. During  the COVID plague, the root canal procedure, now deemed necessary  was postponed, but discussed during my routine cleaning appointment, and 2 new appointments set up. But I had a question:

ME:  In performing the root canal, what happens to the old filling?

DDS:  There is no old filling. I remove them.

ME:   You told me you left it in place.

DDS: No, I remove old fillings. I could count on one hand the number of times I've ever left a patient's filling in place during a root canal. (And he holds up one hand, fingers splayed.) It would be very unusual and I've performed 200-300 root canals.

ME: Well, I must be unusual because that's what you told me. 

DDS:  Let me go look. (He walks over to his computerized files and after a short time, says...) You might be right.