I saw the oral surgeon today. He saw my panoramic xray and actually took a 3d/cone beam scan. He was very nice and spent a good amount of time going over everything with me. He thinks there are a number of different issues at work here, given my tooth pain, jaw muscle pain, and numbness in the side of my face. Wants me to see a face pain specialist.

As far as the extraction, he numbed the area of the tooth and asked me if the pain went away; I suppose that's a good test of whether the extraction will get rid of the pain? It sort of helped, but when the anesthesia wore off, pain came back even worse. I think I am really sensitive to any injections in this area. But just now after I got home, I drank a glass of seltzer (which I almost never drink carbonated beverages) and I felt it very strongly in my tooth, which has been root canaled and is supposed to feel nothing. This is the same sensation I had last month before the second root canal on 19, which both the dentist and the endo attributed to that tooth (19, as 18 was already root-canaled). How can I still be sensitive to cold; does that mean that there is still living tissue in the root canaled tooth?

I want to go forward with the extraction, but don't want to complicate my situation with muscle pain. Should I wait and see yet another dentist/doctor? If I pull it, at least I will be eliminating one possible source of the pain, though even the guy who would be paid to pull it is saying it doesn't have to be pulled. Even the few injections I had this afternoon seem to irritate my jaw muscles and cause numbness, though it of course almost impossible to tell what is causing what right now.