Hi Pam,

Oh I hear you.... please don't let this frustrate you. I know you are in a miserable situation but hopefully it will be much and real soon.

Waiting 6 months for an oral surgeon is not logical at all. Do you live in the US or the UK? In the US oral surgeons will see patients on emergency basis. Chronic dental pain requiring daily pain meds constitutes an emergency.

My concerns with the general dentist extracting the tooth are:

1) RC teeth are more brittle than vital teeth. Which means he may have difficulty removing it and break it into small pieces. Many general dentists are not experienced well enough or equipped to remove those pieces without causing trauma to the bone ..... and all pieces need to be removed nothing should be left behind.

2) Upper posterior teeth can be in close proximity to the sinuses. This means that there could be a sinus communication between the root of the tooth and the sinus. Most general dentists are not experienced at dealing with a sinus communication. Oral surgeons deal with this all the time.

3) When the tooth is removed, the periodontal ligament and all necrotic tissue and bone needs to be scraped out so the bone is clean of all debris. Unfortunately, general dentists tend not to do either of those things. Oral surgeons understand the importance of debriding the socket clean. With that said, whoever you choose to see for the extraction, it would be in your best interest to express to them that you want them to debride the socket thoroughly. The reason you should mention it is because in every business people can get sloppy at times... in expressing this be done you are reassuring yourself that it will be done. Inadequate debridement can leave you with infection and neuralgic type pain. So this step of the surgery is very important.

4) Due to the extent of the pain that you have been having and since it is mimicking neuralgia... it is imperative that an experienced dentist remove this tooth and not cause any unnecessary trauma to this area of your mouth.

Regarding the advil.... only take the dosage that is effective and no more. There is no reason to start out with 3 or 4 tablets. Try 2 and if no relief in an hour, take one more. Also make sure you never take advil on an empty stomach.

It would also be very helpful if you took a probiotic supplement. Probiotics are good, healthy bacteria that are essential for life. Anytime the body is dealing with infection, illness, or chronic pain it is imperative to feed the immune system with good bacteria. Seventy percent of our immune system is in our digestive tract and keeping it healthy is very important. Probiotics are not something that the body makes on it's own. You can get it from eating sugar free fermented foods or a supplement. Yogurt... unless it is homemade yogurt without sugar, is not a good source of live bacteria as it is over processed and the bacteria has long died by the time the product reaches the store shelf. A good probiotic product to try is called Culturelle. Most drug stores and super markets carry it.

Hang in there......
Bryanna