Tom,

Thanks for getting back to me today.

I believe there is more to this story than I think you realize or have been informed of by your dentist. The sequence of events is suspicious to me especially since your dentist seems so nonchalant about the "instantaneous" infection. If I were to try to read between the lines and base my opinion on my professional experience... ...here is what I would come up with....

Perhaps.... tooth #24 has been in question for awhile. Meaning it had some decay for quite some time and/or had some subtle radio-graphic signs of infection... maybe some periodontal involvement. Perhaps the decay was around an old filling and/or was on the root surface of the tooth. Either of which could contribute to the onset of infection because they indicate the tooth was compromised in some way. You may or may not have been informed of any or all of that by your dentist or hygienist. Any chance you could post an x-ray of that area?

Drilling into a small cavity does not cause the tooth to become instantaneously infected unless the decay was very deep, the tooth was already compromised and/or the pulp of the tooth was injured during the drilling. For those reasons I'm leaning towards the possibility that this tooth had "problems" prior to being filled. Your dentist would know the answer to ... if the tooth were ill prior.... if the decay was deep ... if she went into the pulp when she drilled.

The other possibility.... if the tooth were healthy prior to having it filled and the decay was not deep nor did she hit the pulp when drilling..... that something occurred during the cleaning that either stirred up bacteria that was present below the gum line or bacteria entered below the gum line via a dirty instrument.... both of which can cause or contribute to the infection. All of these scenarios would contribute to discomfort or pain in various areas of the mouth due to the inflammation.

The slight fever could be due to any number of things. So it may or may not be related to this particular incident.

Before I would do anything else with her..... I would ask her what the health status of this tooth was prior to the filling. Ask her about the depth of the decay.... about the health of the gum tissue and bone and is there bone loss..... is it severe or mild? If severe, how did it get that way if the tooth was healthy? Do you see where I am going with these questions? She needs to be accountable to you for not only her actions with this tooth but with the health of all your other teeth as well. Otherwise you could be walking around with other teeth in a similar condition and not even know it.

It is common to prep for a bridge at the time of the extraction. Sometimes this is the best time because this way there is no lag time for the adjacent teeth to move towards the opening of the removed tooth. However, it is important that you know which teeth she is preparing for the bridge, how many teeth .... and are those teeth healthy enough to handle the bridge??

If you had time.... and infection wasn't an issue... I would suggest that you get a consult with a new dentist.... have new xrays and a new examination and see what their findings are as this dentist may not be disclosing everything to you. Not that you want to hear any more bad news... but you are concerned about how this all came about and it is suspicious that it happened so suddenly.

I'm going to let you... and half the world.... in on a little secret. Perhaps I have already mentioned this here... I don't remember. It is fairly common for dentists to not disclose all of their findings to the patient and for a variety of reasons..........

For instance, sometimes the patient gives the impression that they are only interested in doing the minimal preventive dental work and only as needed.

Sometimes people don't see the value in spending money on their teeth "if they look good" what's the problem.

Sometimes people are very reluctant to spend the money on their teeth and only want to do what is absolutely necessary at the time.

Sometimes the dentist is just neglectful.

So you can see how things can go wrong along the way.

Keep me posted.... hope you feel better soon