Thanks so much for all your help, Bryanna. You are right about me feeling overwhelmed. In my original posts, I was so intent on getting to the bottom line that I omitted some important details.

For one thing, my dentist never saw the Cerec crown until after the root canal. I had been traveling when I broke the tooth, and had to have it done away from home. (I broke/cracked two other teeth at the same time, and also had those replaced by the same Cerec enthusiast, though the other two teeth have not YET- fingers crossed- caused any problems.) I'm not sure that my regular dentist ever got over the fact that I allowed someone else to do all that work on me, even though it was out of my control. He had been my dentist for over 20 years, and I trusted him completely, but as the months went by and I could not seem to get over the pain of the root canal, I began to suspect that his resentment was clouding his judgement about my treatment and I went to get a second opinion.

That dentist actually agreed with my old dentist that we should try to replace the crown with a temporary to see if that would alleviate any of the pain. I decided to start everything fresh with him, and he replaced the horrible Cerec crown about 6 weeks ago with a temp. We agree to keep the temp on as long as I neeed, to se if the root canal would calm down. Meanwhile, the adjacent tooth seemed like it was acting up. It had a 30+ year old gold crown on it, but I was sure I could feel something going on underneath it. The dentist removed that crown as well at my insistence, and said there was some decay but it didn't look too serious. He put another temp on and we waited.

To be honest, it was often hard to distinguish between the pain of one or the other teeth, especially since the worst of it seemed to be coming from between the two teeth (that gum margin/biologic width issue I suppose). I felt sensitivity to cold (especially liquids) and and some percussive pain when the tooth was tapped. But even more disturbing was a deeper pain in my jaw, and an additonal pain (like a guitar string being plucked) which recurred a few times in a row every few hours throughout the say, and seemed to run along my jawline. I wonder if this is a ligament or a nerve, but forgot to ask the perio about it. He thought that the pain that radiates to my ear several times a day was from TMJ, even though it feels like an ear infection to me. I wish I had remembered to mention this other chord plunking pain, but when your list of complaints has accumulated for 9 months, I guess it's hard to fit everything in one visit.

In any event, my dentist (#2) was puzzled and sent me to an endo for a pulp test. When I showed up at the endo, however, he told me there was no need for a pulp test, the tooth was clearly sensitive and had to be root-canaled. He had time to start it then and there. UGH. I wish I had taken the time to consider this. But I was scared (am generally just terrified at the dentist anyway) and in pain.

Anyway, that's how I ended up with two root canals and two temp crowns. Lots of time and money spent, and I am still in substantial pain. Not even sure what the cause is; is the pain from the root canal? From the violation of the biologic width? Both? What about the TMJ? DO I need to have my entire bite adjusted and who should do that? Will the pain go away if I extract the tooth? Will I still have this pain with an implant? Since the immediate pain is my immediate concern, what should be the first thing I do? It would be nice to make my future decisions without this throbbing pain in my head; it's definitely hard to think straight with this BIG pain so close to my little brain.

My tooth is still pretty sore from the perio scraping. Or maybe it's just the old soreness. The perio also wants me on a soft diet for some period of time, which I guess means REALLY soft, since I have not had anything crunchy or hard (despite some bad cravings) for 9 months.

I really appreciate all your help, Bryanna. I see all these people calling out for your help and you patiently going from thread to thread dispensing knowledge and insight. We're very lucky to have you, and I do realize you may not have time to answer all the questions I just dumped in this post. I just needed to write them all down somewhere. But if you have some "extra" time and the inclination, I'd be very grateful for some advice!