Hi sadie,
I am in the dental field and can offer you some help here.
Dentists are taught to "save" teeth with root canal procedures. Unfortunately, the term "save" only indicates "retain" ... not cure. And every dentist is very aware of this fact. However, rarely will a dentist go into that explanation with a patient because endodontics is a very lucrative procedure and one that they don't want to give up.... and also dentists know that most people do not want to have their teeth extracted. So the game of endodontics is played until the tooth is so abscessed that there is no alternative.
You mentioned "some additional treatments". Did you have apicoectomies done on either of these teeth??
Without any doubt all root canaled teeth are infected as there is no access to the tiny canals that contain dead nerve tissue. So irrelevant of how many times the tooth is root canaled or apicoed.... these canals will always be diseased. There are many other things that occur in the bone surrounding these infected teeth which cause pain to develop that is often misdiagnosed as some form of neuralgia.
Infected teeth can cause or contribute to various nerve conditions in the jaw bone, some temporary and some permanent. This is one huge reason why infected and/or root canaled teeth should not be "retained" for any length of time. Most dental problems pose little to no symptoms until the problem is severe. So it is never wise to gauge a tooth infection by the limitation of symptoms.
It is without question wise to assume that all root canaled teeth have bacterial problems due to the anatomical structure of the tooth prohibiting access to the countless tiny canals preventing the tooth from being sterilized or curable.
I feel terrible that you had that other tooth root canaled as the original rc tooth was probably the source of your pain. To remove one of them simply means you have not dealt with the problem in its entirety. Unfortunately, you are not alone in this travesty. I wish dentists would inform their patients of the risks of keeping infected teeth.
The decision to remove or not remove these teeth will be yours and you may have to do some searching to find an oral surgeon to do it. You can consult with someone who is a member of the IAOMT organization as these practitioners have a clearer understanding and are more forthright in providing information to their patients.
Bryanna
Quote:
Originally Posted by sadie682
I had a root canal in December 2012 on a back lower molar, and have had non-stop pain since then. I've had a full re-treatment, and some additional treatments (that I don't fully understand) since then, and nothing alleviates the pain, which manifests as gum and jaw pain, sometimes radiating to the ear. Recently, a new dentist thought pain might be caused by an adjacent tooth, and so last week I had a root canal on that tooth as well. I am already worried that this tooth is about to go down the same path as the first one.
I have read some posts here which advocated extractions of root-canaled teeth. I have reached the point of pain and frustration where I am willing to consider this, but my question is why do none of the dentists I have been working with (2 dentists and 2 endodontists) not recommend this? They seem to oppose it on the grounds that they cannot see anything wrong with the tooth, or the root canal work; they say I could possibly be extracting a tooth without solving the underlying cause of the pain. But what else could this pain be? They have mentioned neuralgia (I guess TN) but have not given me a way to rule this out? Is there some definitive way to rule out TN before extracting the tooth?
I was more inclined toward extraction before the second root canal. Now I am worried that I will have to lose both teeth and get implants that I don't want and can hardly afford. But, more than anything, I want this pain to go away before it gets even worse. I'm worried that there's an infection underneath or in this tooth, but I don't understand why no one can see it. Can it really be the case that there is no empirical way to prove the tooth is bad (except by removing it and starting to feel better), and there is ALSO no way to prove that it is TN or something else. I'm at the end of my rope and cannot find an endo or dentist who can tell me anything definitive.
Is there a specialist in this sort of thing, and if so, how can I find them?
Please help!
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