sadie,
If it were me, my main concern would be keeping teeth that I know are infected. So although I would not want to have the oral surgery, I would not hesitate to remove both teeth at one time. Many years ago I had 2 upper molars (next to each other) removed at the same time. They both had very old large amalgam fillings and deep recurrent decay under each one. My choices were rc or extraction. I did not hesitate to remove them and I recovered just fine.
Another thing dentists neglect to tell their patients is that an rc tooth can have pain and/or temperature sensitivity. Which occurs for many reason but these two reasons in particular .... #1) there will always be nerve tissue inside of the tiny canals that become inflamed which can cause pain within and around the tooth.... #2) all teeth sit in a live periodontal ligament which holds the tooth in the live bone. An inflamed tooth sends a message to the various branches of nerves surrounding it that something is wrong.... this signals pain or sensitivity. Also if the tooth is fractured, it is irrelevant if it is root canaled or not because the inflammation from the bacteria that covers the fracture will send those same warning messages.
You asked me on another post about requesting a reimbursement from the ENT for the rc. If you were not given the option of extracting these teeth and were told that having rc would "cure" your problems... then yes, you are entitled to a reimbursement since the symptoms have not resided and you have been complaining about them all along.
Bryanna
Quote:
Originally Posted by sadie682
First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to reread all my posts about these teeth. I really can't thank you enough, Bryanna. And I think you are right, that I fractured the tooth (I felt the crown move when I was chewing something, then the pain began) last November and that pain led me to get the root canal in December. Not sure what happened in the case of the second root canal; I was still feeling cold sensitivity from the root-canal next to it? I guess it COULD be fractured; the RCT was pretty hard-core as all of the canals were calcified. Even with anesthesia it felt like a jackhammer. All of this compounded by gum pain, TMJ (which grew worse as time went on), etc...
Just to clarify: I'm not uncertain about pulling the teeth; I've realized they both needed to be extracted for some time. I'm just worried about the making things worse, since I now regret every decision I've made so far. Now I am second-guessing myself with everything. So I have no idea how to do it the most gentle way possible.
It seems logical to pull both of them together from my perspective. I want the pain gone ASAP, and the recovery happening at the same time rather than weeks (or months?) also makes sense. On the other hand, I also realize that two teeth is probably double the trauma for my jaw, which is already in spasm from everything it's been subjected to in the last year. I never used to get headaches, ever; now i have them every day, sometimes for most of the day.
I want to have both of these teeth out this coming week. But I'm scared that if something goes wrong with that, I will be in an even deeper mess than I am now. Double the risk, double the trauma? But on the other hand, what you said about waiting also worries me: if I just pull one, the other one will still be painful all through my recovery from the first extraction, and may interfere with the outcome.
I've waited patiently on the advice of my dentists; now I am fed up with these teeth. Of course, I don't WANT to have either of them out; I wish I could roll back the clock and not have either RCT. They are both painful, and have been since the RCTs. But now it's just a matter of timing the extractions to do the least harm to my jaw (and the rest of me). I know you probably can't advise me this specifically, but if it were your two teeth, would you extract them simultaneously?
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