If a tooth gives you a sharp little jab when you bite, and a sharper one the moment you let go, that second jab is the crack itself talking. Once you understand what it is saying, the fix makes complete sense, and the story is a lot kinder than the one you’ve probably been telling yourself.
Why does a cracked tooth hurt more when you let go?
Let’s start with what a tooth is made of, because the answer is hiding in there. The outside is enamel, the hardest thing in your body, and there is no feeling in it at all. Underneath sits the dentine, a softer layer threaded with tiny channels, each finer than a hair, running in to the nerve in the middle. Those channels are why a tooth with its dentine showing winces at a cold drink: anything that moves the fluid inside them is felt by the nerve.
Now picture a crack running down through the enamel and into that dentine. When you bite, the two sides of the crack are pushed apart, just a fraction, and only as fast as you press. When you let go, they snap back together in an instant, like a garden gate on a spring banging shut. That sudden slam jolts the fluid in all those little channels at once, and the nerve feels it as a sharp, bright jab.
So the pain on letting go is the crack closing. Curious, isn’t it? The symptom that sounds the strangest turns out to be a wonderfully clear clue. A tooth with a cavity tends to ache; a tooth with a crack jabs, and it jabs hardest on the release.
Why does cracked tooth pain come and go?
This is the part that makes people doubt themselves. A crusty roll sets it off on Tuesday, then the tooth leaves you alone for days, and you start to wonder whether you imagined it. You didn’t.
You see, a crack runs in one line, a bit like the grain in a piece of wood. A bite on the corner of the tooth beside the crack wedges the two sides apart; a bite anywhere else leaves it shut. So the jab only comes when a particular mouthful meets the tooth at a particular angle, and the rest of the time the crack sits quietly. Hard and chewy things are the usual culprits, because they push and pull the hardest: a nut, a toffee, the end of a baguette.
And without noticing, you’ve probably already started chewing on the other side, which keeps the crack shut even more of the time.
Will a cracked tooth stop hurting on its own?
The pain can quieten, sometimes for a long while. The crack is still there, because a crack in a tooth does not heal.
Think about a broken bone. It knits back together because it’s alive, full of living cells, fed by blood vessels, that lay new bone across the gap. Enamel has no living cells in it, and the dentine underneath cannot grow across a split either, so there is nothing in a tooth that can knit a crack shut. When the jabs fade, it’s usually because the crack has stopped being pushed open and the nerve has settled for a while. A quiet crack is still a crack.
Why does that matter to you? Because a crack is far easier to hold together while it is small. Every bite that opens it can nudge it a little deeper, and a crack seen early is usually a tooth you keep, with a crown holding it together. That’s the reason to have a quiet one looked at: you get the easy version of the fix.
What can I do for cracked tooth pain until I see a dentist?
The kindest thing you can do for a cracked tooth is stop opening the crack. Chew on the other side and keep to soft food for now, because soft food can’t push the two sides apart. nhs.uk’s own toothache advice says the same: “eat soft foods, like yoghurt or scrambled eggs, and try to avoid chewing with the sore tooth”. It also says not to eat foods that are “sweet, very hot or very cold”, because cold and sugar move the fluid in those little channels too.
For the ache itself, nhs.uk suggests painkillers “like ibuprofen or paracetamol”, adds that “children under 16 should not take aspirin”, and says that “a pharmacist can advise you”. A pharmacist is a lovely person to ask, and as nhs.uk’s page on paracetamol puts it, “Always check the packet or leaflet that comes with your medicine.”
If a piece of the tooth has actually come away, keep it. nhs.uk’s advice is to “put it in milk or saliva” and take it to a dentist, and it adds, “The dentist may be able to glue the piece of tooth back on.” If the tooth is keeping you up, our guide to getting through toothache at night is written for exactly that.
If you ever have a swelling of the face that is closing an eye, or making it hard to breathe or swallow, go to A&E or call 999 instead.
What will a dentist do with a cracked tooth?
Well, first a dentist has to find it, which is harder than it sounds. As NHS inform puts it, “the crack is often so small that it can’t be seen with the naked eye”, and a fine crack can hide on an x-ray too. So a dentist may ask you to bite on something small, one part of the tooth at a time, until the familiar jab gives the crack away. Your own description helps a great deal here: which side, which foods, and whether it is the bite or the letting go.
Then it’s held together. Our white fillings page puts it in one line: for a cracked tooth that hurts when you release a bite, “a crown holds it; a filling would not.” Here’s why. A filling sits inside the tooth and fills a gap, while a crown wraps the whole tooth, the way an iron hoop wraps a wooden barrel. Squeeze a hooped barrel and the planks can’t spread apart. A crowned tooth is the same: when you bite, the two sides of the crack are held, nothing moves, and with nothing moving there is nothing to jab. How a crown is planned, made and fitted is on its own page.
If the crack has reached the nerve, the nerve is treated first. You tend to know when that has happened, because the tooth starts to throb by itself, or aches long after a hot or cold drink, instead of only jabbing on a bite. Settling it means dressing or removing the nerve, the first stage of a root canal, and the crown goes on afterwards. A tooth is taken out only if it has split beyond saving, and you are told why first.
At Designer Smiles, all of this starts with the emergency appointment. In practice hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm) we set out to see anyone with a dental emergency the same day, and you don’t need to be a patient already. The tooth is examined first, with an x-ray if it’s needed, so the cause is known before anything is done, and then the nerve is dressed or the tooth made safe. The crown is planned and priced once the pain has gone, and booked for another day, usually within the fortnight. Whichever of our dentists is free first sees you, and all of them do the whole of general dentistry, so the person who found your crack is the person who plans the crown.
How much does it cost to fix a cracked tooth?
The emergency visit is £27.90 in practice hours, the same figure as the NHS urgent charge, and £150 outside them, and it covers the examination and getting you out of pain. Whatever the tooth needs after that is priced from the fee guide and told to you before it is done.
If the nerve needs settling on the day, dressing or removing it is £76.60. A full root canal is £550 for a front tooth or canine and £850 for a molar, and the difference is simply how many canals are inside: a front tooth has one, a molar three or four.
The crown is priced by what it is made of. A metal crown is from £332.10, the NHS Band 3 figure; a white crown is from £450; a porcelain or ceramic crown is from £800. The figure for your own tooth is written down at the examination before anything is done. Payment is on the day, and for the larger repairs there is 0% finance through Tabeo. There’s a guide to what decides the price of a crown, and another to what an emergency dentist costs in Solihull, with the fees other practices publish set beside ours.
Is broken tooth pain the same thing?
They’re close cousins, and they’re seen the same way. A cracked tooth is still in one piece with a split running through it; a broken tooth has lost a piece altogether. When a piece comes away, the dentine underneath can be left open, and then a cold drink, a breath of winter air or something sweet reaches those little channels straight away, which is why a freshly broken tooth can be so sensitive. If the break has gone deep enough to reach the nerve, it aches all by itself.
Here’s the reassuring part, in nhs.uk’s own words: “Chipping, breaking or cracking a tooth is usually not serious. A dentist should be able to treat it.” A broken tooth that hurts is an emergency appointment just like a cracked one, seen the same day in practice hours. If it hurts or it has broken, ring; nobody will ask you to justify it. A small chipped corner that doesn’t hurt can usually wait for an ordinary appointment, and our guide to what fixing a chipped tooth costs covers it, from bonding to a crown.
So that’s the story: the jab when you let go is the crack snapping shut, and once the tooth is held together, there’s nothing left to snap. Ring 0121 709 3821, book online or message us on WhatsApp, and we’ll take a look at that tooth. And if you’d rather weigh up every way to be seen today in Solihull, the NHS routes included, they’re all in one guide.
