Hi yoba,
Here is what I think has happened. The area that was packing food was decayed and when the dentist drilled into it he either found the decay to be near or in the pulp OR he found an exposure into the pulp as he was removing the decay. That is why he proceeded with the root canal procedure.
The bleeding from a canal during the root canal indicates vitality. This means that this canal still contained live nerve tissue. However his reference to it having a "small cut"... makes me think he perforated the tooth with a sharp file and cut in to the bone. This would meant that the tooth has been perforated and the bacteria has an easy path into the bone. It also sounds like he made lots of effort to plug up this perforation with all that gutta percha!! That's like putting a band-aid over a broken bone... it just doesn't work.
It concerns me A LOT that he medicated the tooth twice..... he may have packed it with a cotton ball soaked in formocresol or some other highly toxic. chemical. He would do this to try and kill off the live nerves inside of the large canals. There is also no way to remove this toxin from the tooth which means you are breathing and ingesting it constantly.
You have been through a lot with this tooth. I am afraid that most of it may have been unnecessary. The tooth could have been in trouble prior to him drilling into it... but honestly, based on what you have written here everything he did just made it that much worse. The endodontist was not about to go against the original dentist so that is why he re treated it. He too just made things worse.
The truth of the matter is this...... you will never know if that tooth only needed a filling or not. Your dentist was eager to rc the tooth....and get that crown on there..... possibly for the $$$$. The tooth has been traumatized over and over again... it is at least partially non vital. Irrelevant of how many times you root canal a tooth with or without the use of a microscope.... the tooth will remain infected because there is no access to the infected nerve tissue inside of the tiny dentin tubules (microscopic canals). The tooth may or may not temporarily calm down as you take this antibiotic. But it will flare up at some point all over again.
The only way to prevent the infection from spreading into the jaw bone is to remove the tooth.
I'm sorry to tell you this but your dentist should have given you more information that he has. This tooth will be a constant source of bacteria. He is well aware of that.... so is the endodontist. If you decide to remove this tooth..... please go to an oral surgeon who is not affiliated with this practice... and do not let a general dentist extract it.
Please check back with us and let us know how you are doing.
Bryanna
Quote:
Originally Posted by yoba
Dear Bryanna, I was going through the other posts and I am convinced that you will be able to help me out. The story started in may this year when I went to my dentist to have my teeth scaled/cleaned. At the time I had this issue of food getting stuck in my no 3 tooth (I think that's the number -the first molar on the upper left) . I was under the impression that it was a cavity of some sort and could be cleaned and filled.
There was absolutely no pain in the tooth either while chewing or while tapping. Just the food getting stuck. The dentist had a look, drilled into the tooth and said that it was a borderline case, and there was some decay, so a root canal had to be done. I asked them about just filling in the cavity but he said that if they do that there will be some pressure buildup in the tooth which will eventually cause a lot more pain(there was none in the first place) and that the RCT was the only way out. So I decided to get the RCT done.
Spread out of a couple of days he cleaned all four of the canals (during the cleaning one of the canals was bleeding , but he decided to carry on with the filling of the canal anyway as he said it was a small cut..I don't know if this is important but I thought I'd mention it anyway). Once the RCF was complete a temporary cap was placed on the tooth. Now there was a constant pain in that tooth when ever I tapped it or while trying to bite on anything hard. Generally the pain would not be there constantly, but only when tapped. They put me on a course of antibiotics.. Nothing worked.
They kept waiting to see if it settles. Finally when the permanent crown came in they fixed it with temporary cement. He said I had to get used to the permanent crown , so I might as well fix that instead of the temporary. The pain persisted , so they decided to retreat. He first retreated the mb1 and mb2 canals. They put in some medicine twice and each time we waited for a week . nothing happened. Filled it up with an enormous amount of filler(I couldn't count how many of those Gutta sticks were pushed inside and split)..
He said sometimes by filling up the canal the pain subsides..Waited for some time , but nothing happened. Well then they called in an endodontist who saw the whole bunch of X-rays taken (10-12) and said everything looked fine. But he decided to retreat the distal and parietal canals. To do this he had to remove the permament porcelain crown which was fixed with "temporary cement" . Well this permanent crown had come of easily on past occasions,in fact it kept popping off and I had to go back and get it fixed. But this time it refused to budge.. The tried all sorts of ways..banging it really hard( if my tooth hadn't cracked until then I'm sure it must have) .
The crown didn't come off. So the decided to drill through the crown and retreat the two remaining canals.. That was 20 days back.. As of today the pain is still there when I tap and when I push on the tooth from the side near the cheek. It is also there when I initially bite on something hard. Normally there is no pain. Just in the above two instances..the pain is not unbearable , just there and frustrating and annoying. Now he says they have tried everything possible and day after he is going to cut out the permanent crown and leave the tooth off the bit and fill it with permanent cement.
He is also starting another course of antibiotics..augmentin or copox(not sure..he said he would let me know). Anyways he say if the pain dosent stop they will have to extract the tooth..
Now this is my concern..firstly the pain was not there before the RCT. then the pain is only there when I Tap of push on the tooth(none while releasing the pressure). Third, the pain in minor,mostly an irritant, but its there nevertheless.
Would really appreciate any advice.. Have begun to think it might me that the jaw bone itself got infected during the procedure 
Thank you |