Temporary Crown Will Not Budge W/o Intense Pain - Normal? (Replacing 12 Year Old Crown to Match in Colour the Rest of my Teeth).

Taking off a temporary crown without any local anesthetic, and just using numbing gel, is not the standard way of removing temporaries unless that tooth has no sensitivity or already had a root canal.  In our practice the standard way of removing a temporary crown is first use numbing gel, then giving local anesthesia, and then after the tooth is completely numb I try to gently remove the temporary.  If the temporary won't easily come off, then the next approach would be to gently and carefully drill through the plastic temporary and remove  small pieces of the temporary, one piece at a time.  What you were probably feeling was the tooth being wiggled back in forth, which is like the first step in extracting (pulling) a tooth.  I can appreciate you were uncomfortable with that.

By using this technique you would have an extremely lower possibility of breaking the tooth underneath or needing a root canal.

Dear Nora,

Your experience is a bit unusual since removal of a temporary crown should not that complicated unless for some reason cemented with a permanent cement ( rarely done ). However, if cemented permanently then it can be cut using a bur ( drill ) and removed using local anesthesia.

I hope my answer is satisfactory 

In my practice I always get my patients numb before removing a temporary crown on a tooth that doesn't have a root canal. It could be that the initial trauma caused an inflammatory response in the tooth that needs time to calm down. Also the dentist can cut the temporary off rather than trying to pull it off after getting you numb. This is less traumatic provided the tooth is thoroughly numb. Hope this helps.